IT IS ALWAYS NOW, by Sam Harris

it is always now 
I actually want to talk 
today about death 
now most of us do our best to not to think about death 
but there's always part of our minds that knows 
this can't go on forever 
part of us always knows 
that we're just a doctor's visit away or a phone call away from being starkly 
reminded 
with the fact of our own mortality 
or of those closest to us 
now I'm sure many of you in this room have experienced this in some form 
you must know how uncanny it is 
to suddenly 
be thrown out of the normal course of your life 
and just be given the full time job of not dying 
or caring for someone who is 
but the one thing people tend to realize 
at moments like this is that they wasted a lot of time 
when life was normal 
and it's not just what they, it's not just what they did with their time, it's not just 
that they 
spent too much time working or or compulsively checking email 
it's that they cared about the wrong things 
they regret what they cared about 
their attention was bound up in petty concerns 
year after year 
when life was normal 
and this is a paradox of course because 
we all know 
this epiphany is coming 
I mean, don't you know this is coming? 
don't you know there's going to come a day 
when you'll be sick or someone close to you will die 
and you'll look back 
at the kinds of things that captured your attention 
and you'll think, "what, what was I doing?" 
you know this, and yet if you're like most people, 
you'll spend most of your time in life 
tacitly presuming you'll live forever 
it's like watching a bad movie for the fourth time 
or bickering with your spouse 
I mean this, these things only makes sense 
in light of eternity 
there better be a heaven if we're gonna waste our time like that 
there are ways to 
really live in the present moment 
what what's the alternative? 
it is always now 
however much you feel you may need to plan for the future 
to anticipate it, to mitigate the risks, 
the reality of your life is now 
this may sound trite 
but it's the truth 
it's not quite true as a matter of physics, in fact there is no now 
that encompasses the entire universe you can't talk about an event 
being simultaneously 
occurring here and one 
at the same moment occurring in Andromeda 
the truth is, now is not even well-defined as a matter of neurology because 
we know that inputs to the brain 
come at different moments and that consciousness is built upon layers 
of inputs whose timing to have to be different 
our conscious awareness of the present moment is 
in some relevant sense already a memory 
but as a matter of conscious experience 
the reality of your life 
is always now 
and I think this is a liberating truth about the nature of the human mind in 
fact I think there's probably nothing more important to understand 
about your mind than that 
if you want to be happy 
the past is a memory 
it's a thought 
arising in the present 
the future is merely anticipated, it is another thought 
arising now 
what we truly have 
is this moment 
and this 
and this 
and we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth 
repudiating it, fleeing it, overlooking it, 
and the horror 
is that we succeed 
we we've managed to 
never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we 
are we are 
continually hoping to become happy in the future 
and the future never arrives 
even when we think we're in the present moment we're, we're in very 
subtle ways, always looking over its shoulder 
anticipating what's coming next 
we're always solving a problem 
and it's possible to simply drop your problem 
if only for a moment 
and enjoy whatever is true of your life in the present 
this is not a matter of new information 
or more information, it requires a change in attitude 
it requires a change in the attentiveness you pay 
to your experience in the present moment