living in the moment quotes

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!

The willingness and ability to live fully in the now eludes many people. While eating your appetizer, don’t be concerned with dessert.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

I just want to live happily ever after, every now and then.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don’t appreciate the moment until it’s passed.

Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‚Boy, those were great old days.‘ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

Life is anything but predictable.

My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‚Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.‘

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

Forever is composed of nows.

Every day is a gift from God. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, so that tells me to see the good in this day to make the most of it.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

If you are not living this moment, you are not really living.

A great hallmark of mental wellness is the ability to be in the present moment, fully and with no thoughts of being elsewhere.

When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you’re waiting for the elevator – instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

You have to grab moments when they happen. I like to improvise and ad lib.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while holding the hand of another, or looking lovingly at a child, or taking in the beauty of an evening. Love has no past or future, and so it is with this extraordinary state of silence.

If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.

I don’t try to control my days.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Life’s short. Anything could happen, and it usually does, so there is no point in sitting around thinking about all the ifs, ands and buts.

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

Confine yourself to the present.