I recently got hold of some of my old clothes that I'd left behind in my old house, including a large number of socks. When I moved to where I am now, I only had a suitcase of clothes, and it was summer, so I only had a few pairs. In a way, that was a liberation too - I decided that I didn't *have* to wear socks all the time!

But then winter came, and I got a job standing up for long periods of time in work shoes, so I needed to buy socks. And now I had all these old ones too and I thought, well I'll keep them because socks wear out, and it'll save me having to buy any for years. There was not enough room in my underwear drawer, so I moved things and had a whole drawer full of socks. Actually, a whole drawer STUFFED with socks. When I opened the drawer, it was difficult to shut it again.

Then I was talking to someone about abundance.

So yesterday morning I emptied out that drawer of socks, and looked at them - what message to the universe am I giving by having all these?

The message is that I don't trust that I'll be able to afford to buy new ones when I need them.

The message is that I am insecure, and need to surround myself with things to protect me.

So I organised them, and now I have sufficient socks for my current needs, and the rest - and there are a LOT of them - are being given away: someone else may benefit from the excess that I don't need.

And this seems to me to be emblematic of the way I can, and have, lived my life. I can try to control everything and make sure that "I have enough". I can try to ensure that every eventuality is covered, that all my plans are in place. But I know what happens when I live like this - I end up discontented.

The thing is, there is NEVER enough; not enough money, enough food, enough booze - not enough anything.

Things don't work out like I plan and so I try to make better plans. The things I have don't make me happy, so I need to get more things.

I also know what it's like when I make room for abundance in my life.

When I give up trying to manage the outcomes, and just look after the here and now, my life opens up and I get to appreciate all the great things in it.

Where I am right now is an absolutely wonderful place, but it's not where I want to be forever. No, I'll re-phrase that - where I am right now is an absolutely wonderful place, AND it's not where I want to be forever.

Yesterday, I threw out some things, and now have space in my wardrobe: every day I can throw out old ideas, and leave space in my life for the abundance that life gives me.

When I live each day as it comes, I can enjoy life as it happens, and every moment can be magical.

Life in the past

Sometimes, we spend too much time living life in the past.

It’s easy for us to look back at things that happened before and try to live them all over again in the present. Maybe they are happy memories, and we want to recapture the things that happened before. We want to know again that excitement of a first love, the taste of a fresh picked strawberry, or the feel of the sun on our bodies in the never ending summer.

And then we look at our current life, and it doesn’t match up with our memories. Our current relationship - or lake of one - does not compare. Nothing we eat ever quite matches that taste we have in our memory. The summers are never as good as they were.

On the other hand, the memories may not be positive ones. It may be we are thinking about someone who hurt or abused us, or occasions where we hurt or abused others. We go back and think about what we could have done or said, what we could have done to protect ourselves or how worthless we are to have acted in the way we did. We are discontented and irritable - we can’t live our life now because of regrets about the past

What we are really doing here is being dishonest - we are not accepting reality.

It is good to have memories of the things that made us happy - as long as we realize they are memories. We can share them with others, and feel again the happiness they gave us. But it is important to keep making new memories - today is a day that we can look back on with pleasure in the future!

When we spend time regretting the past, re-running conversations and thinking about actions we could have taken, we are trying to change the past - and that is impossible. The facts of what happened cannot be changed. Where we did wrong we can make amends, and indeed should do so for our peace of mind. Where we have been hurt, we need to stop torturing ourselves by wondering what we did wrong or could have done better.

Acceptance doesn’t imply anything about saying that past abuse was right, but it is about accepting that it happened, rather than trying to change the past and make it un-happen.

Living in the present means knowing that the past happened - and that it is past - over and done with.

We need to only live today - yesterday has already been used.

Life in the future

Sometimes, we spend too much time living life in the future.

Maybe we say:
“I’ll put this relationship on hold while I build up my business, and then I’ll spend more time with my partner.” Or:
“In the next five years I’ll make this amount of money, and then I’ll have really made it.” Or:
“I’ll go on this new diet, become thin, and then all my worries will be over.”
The only problem is that one of two things happen.

Maybe we don’t achieve the thing we set out to do:
There is a downturn in the economy and the business struggles.
Unexpected bills arrive and we’re not able to save the money we needed.
We go off my diet and don’t lose the weight.

Whatever the reason, our plans go awry, and we feel a failure. And also, because the plans didn’t work, it’s obvious that this is the reason we feel so bad. We just need to put more effort into the business, cut back more on expenses, find a better diet - maybe THEN we’ll be happy.

On the other hand, we might end up achieving our plan. We throw ourselves into the business and it’s a great success. We scrimp and save and achieve our monetary target. We starve ourselves and reach the “ideal weight”.

And then maybe we find that our partner hasn’t waited for us, or that we now have no interests in common. Or that we have the amount of money we planned, only now that is not enough. Or even though we’re now skinny, we’re still miserable and isolated.

It is good to plan - it’s good to work hard at something we love to do, to save for the future, to be careful with what we eat. But none of these things will guarantee a happy future.

And there is a simple reason - there are no guarantees.

The future is out there as one of the three elements of time that we experience - past, present and future. We get to control how we are today, but we don’t get to control the future - we only live in the present.

And really living in the present means enjoying what we can do today. Sometimes what we do today is plan for the future, and that is wonderful, so long as we don’t put off our joy till some golden age when our plans come true.

Part of enjoying the now is seeking for our goals - but only part. Mostly, we need to remember that life is happening today, and we need to enjoy it now - not tomorrow.