IT CAN HAPPEN FOR YOU NOW

I am in fact waiting on something that I already have, these good qualities I already have in abundance are the very qualities I' waiting for or procrastinating on and I am involved in a contradiction of my own making. The positive side to this is your trying to earn a pass when you already have a free pass. I already have a ticket to ride and I spend all my time waiting on line for a ticket. I might be working so hard for something when I already have a free pass.

What I did in that situation is I injected more volatility into the the possible scenarios. Because one outcome was put in the highest priority, the weight of the situation became greater and seemed more volatile to me. I then pushed the lever of procrastination so the situation would seem to weight less to me. The cost wasn’t as high because I will delay.

Or it could be anything I think is going to make me worthy. If I first do this, I am good or I am worthy, and then I can allow myself to be present to the now. By thinking in this fashion, we are putting the whatever it is that I think will make me worthy not only first but as a must. Again, I am putting more than just being my first choice, it is a first and only route to the now and therefore makes the weight of what I am putting first as more than a preference I might choose and maybe more of an actual hurdle than I needed to make it. In actuality, there is no second choice, because if I don’t make it to my first choice, I am not worthy for any other choices. If I don’t bring my first choice into the now, then there will be no other choices of significance coming into the now. There is no revisionist thinking here and no rudder that I can adjust.

Of course, some of the basic contingencies should be there but the list can become onerous and dictatorial to my interests. I give up the now because one or several things I say have to be in place before I do anything just aren’t in place so I give up on everything because my contingencies just aren’t met. The demands I make aren’t met so no deal is cut. I can’t set my sails unless I first have an easterly breeze of at least 15 knots. This demand might limit my willingness or ability to experience the now. Then I can consider whether these demands are set up as the excuse. I set up this set of demands, as an excuse not to get going now. I’ll golf I say when I can first shoot below an 80. How am I going to get my score below an 80 from where I am now which is in the 90’s without continuing to play the game? What happens then is that I don’t go golfing. I set up an actual catch 22 about my golfing game because I can’t get the necessary improvement without additional game practice. One-way to get into the present is to lower or lessen my demands at times so at the least I can continue on. I can operate on the highest levels yes, but also I can operate on lower levels in terms of my higher golf scores. I can accept different levels of performance. I don’t have to have full thrust on my every effort every time out.

We might continue to squander the present not by overdoing and extravagance, but by the opposite, just putting a discount on the now, which we estimate isn’t worth as much as the future, and we push it away for those golden days ahead, for another day, month, year, or decade. If now was a person, you would probably show him or her out of the way and say I’ve got to follow the gold rush so go get out of my way. I’m on my way out to find gold. When I look at the gardens of the now, I need maybe even to first see if I have my own permission to do this. Convergence or divergence often is a matter of permission. If you diverge, you may not have had that secret permission to branch away. But sometimes divergence is smart. But then maybe you are not permitted to converge either. I will consider neither the convergent nor the divergent view. So either way I can’t lose. However, due consideration was never made, that court was never held, I got the escape hatch and closed it behind me. Procrastination often just an unwillingness to sift through the remaining arguments pro and con and finally bring whatever weight you choose to assign to each of the arguments to the table.

I might indeed be waiting for all the variables to be in place. The law student expects that once the variable that’s in place of the law degree he will be able to impress members of the opposite sex. But in fact in may be another variable that will appeal the most to a given girl. He might have all the variables in place for a given girl now absent the law degree. He doesn’t need the law degree for this girl because that’s not what matters to this girl. Her now variable is something else she wants which is an athletic person. Her wish list is different from what you assumed it was. Realizing also, that everybody has a slightly different wish list for anything.

The variable or trait that might most appeal to any given women might be a certain look. Or a certain interest such as in athletics or international events that varies with an individual, which he himself may or may not already have now. And then he might get the variable in place that he thinks is most important only later to find that something else was most important to a given women and he already had that variable back then. Or he finds that he gets the variable of the law degree and it doesn’t matter to this girl now because is was some other variable that she wanted that he hasn’t got now. The idea is that we have to review not only for which are the variables we think we need later, but what are the variables that are already in place now that relate to what I am trying to do. Also, consider which variables are most important to a negotiation or situation now and whether these variables are being looked at in their proper proportion and weights especially when we are dealing with other people or outside forces where they might weigh or consider those variables in a different fashion then we might have assumed. What carries weight with one person may not be what carries weight in that degree with another person. People do weigh things differently. What is going to matter most in a given situation I can’t always be sure of.

While we are looking for additional variables, also look for variables that we already have that we can capitalize on and capture right now.

When someone starts to drive, they are given a learners permit. They are given permission to drive with a fellow licensed driver, as a learner’s permission. I will never get to drive, which is a common mode of transportation, if there has been no permission granted.

Of course we want our permission to have some future resonance that gets me a proper reward. For example, I am a doctor and I’m working on cloning which society is apparently not willing to accept in the foreseen future, I may want to find a path that is more allowable and permissive in terms of it’s fruitions in the near future, so maybe I should seek another scientific project that could be rewarding.

Or maybe you had one bad experience, you gave a lousy speech, so you removed permission from yourself ever to be a public speaker, that possible relationship with the future audience was severed forever to protect yourself from a similar experience. I do this while pondering other protective mechanisms I have formed that keep me from investigating anything from the present that I could have tried to expand with. On the other hand, you get divorced, and you then take away permission to get into that realm of relating again, even though future opportunities sometimes appear again in the now.

You had a bad hamburger at McDonald’s. You tell yourself, I’ll never go there again. Permission is granted you have permission not to go. And maybe that’s good. But permission can work both ways. Why not give yourself permission to go either way in the future, to be or not to be, as Shakespeare said. I will never go to McDonald’s I said, I have my own permission or I could change my mind, after reviewing updated facts on the food, I might find the particular McDonald’s may not be representative of them all, the particular hamburger I had is not representative of every hamburger I could still have. So I can choose again, depending, along with the issuance of new information, on that which I can permit myself to consider, either sometime now or sometime later, in changing my mind. One experience is not every experience and I can maybe get on that horse of going to McDonald's again, despite my one fall. Or maybe it is true, one experience is every experience. But I might not get you to believe that either.

We seem to give permission to ourselves to expect the dismal and the abysmal. I hear the bad news and I permit myself to believe it. Why not give ourselves permission to accept or even begin to see that something good might yet happen, however improbable, and least put some percentage chance on the good. A low chance in not the same as no chance. There might be a 10 or 20 percent or some percentage chance it would come your way.

We seem to give ourselves permission to constantly turn the channel on TV, but in so many other ways we are locked forever, our thoughts are set in everlasting stone, unalterable to any of the new, those prior patterns will prevail and the sails I already set go with me and course along with the same outline and with our prior beliefs intact, when in fact new patterns are forming and we need magnetic and magic thoughts and we can go where new ideas might be found. We haven’t given ourselves permission to have new, different, and more determined ways of thinking. Putting it simply can I think about something else or determine that I can think about something else? This view, which digresses from the known and familiar, is in fact a view, which might be the one that somehow gets us humming. If you can find some good ideas, follow or trail along with the logic of those good ideas. I don’t have to search out only for what I believe is the best view I can get. If I don’t find the best view, I don’t have to say I want no view, I can look at the views that are in between or outside the familiar circle.

There is something lacking but I can’t pinpoint it. Can I find that something else. I might be trying to pinpoint, allocate, and find a precision point and on top of that put it on a time line. In doing this, I might be missing out real present time options and chances. Part of the cause of this is the mathematic part of the education process, which gives equations, and formulas that can be followed forward to a precise answer. But the situations I might be involved with or hope to be involved with might not operate in a similar fashion. Indeed I might not be able to pinpoint when, where and how, and by looking to do this I might further aggravate my search process and might get myself involved in even more procrastination. I can contemplate weather a neat approach should be taking or whether I might just as well abandon the search for a neat, ordered process and just go forward without it. Even if I do find at the moment a neat, ordered process, I can still be aware that this might be interrupted by outer events of a more global nature.

Some people continually look for dating partners while having preset criteria. I will only permit myself to talk with someone, of a certain height. Or the rich man thinks he should only talk wealthy counterparts, foregoing conversations with the plebian masses. But the variables and intersections, can not be completely known in advance, territories are not in fact neatly defined or static, they might be more like a gushing river. I find no matter how much I have going for me, I am subject to operating in the same chaos as anyone else. These territories, may not even remain in their current form, each moment really is newly forming territory, even very separate from the past. Just because this girl isn’t a model doesn’t mean she isn’t attractive, so we can’t always look for a true dichotomy, a true split. All diamonds aren’t the same. So I procrastinate because I don’t know, how things will converge together, so I forget about it all together, foregoing the now, the coming together never happens, so we will never know what might have been. Had we been willing to take in another view. The coming together of ideas, of people, of what could yet be is passed over. In part due to the dim perceptions of some if not all of us now. Two people both have the variable of liking each other, but they never follow through towards a friendship.

It might be better to make one or two of our coinciding variables definite and let the rest be moving or changeable variables. If I make too many of my coinciding variables definite, it could leave me out of now. I could make only say one variable definite. I definitely want at least x amount of money with me as I travel through Europe as these two needed and wanted variables work together. But do I also want the political conditions to be definite, the weather patterns to be definite in the various countries I intend to travel? I want to date someone with blue eyes. I could make this variable definite but leave some of the other variables open. Then, how many coinciding variables do I want to get going as I attempt to march them together. What variables are really most important here as far as having side by side implications?

I could appreciate say reading a book I enjoy the show as much as anyone, even the King. I might have an intrinsic feeling and thought that reaches towards the highest levels. So although I may seem to be less perfect than the next person, my level of appreciation shows good capacities. That ability to appreciate in and of itself can reach new and great heights. My facility to engage to a great lecture, a great movie, and a good course of dialogue, might be as high for me as the person who seems to have so much more on the surface of things or I am indeed at a close level to perfection in terms of my appreciations. The ability to appreciate is another type of vision and sight that I can begin to rely upon or refer to now. The appreciation I am finding within is a form of sight for me now.

In addition, think about the word vote that seems to give permission and says yes now. When you are talking at length with a friend, you are voting yes, yes I give my consent to this endeavor, yes it is worthwhile to some degree. A girl says she will go with you to the movie, that right there is a yes vote, you might as well run for office.

The reverse can take place the regular guy gets some interest from the supermodel. Like in the movie Notting Hill. Julia Roberts in the end, playing herself really, finds her happiness in the character played by Hugh Grant, the man minding the bookstore in Notting Hill. Find your Notting Hill. The rich and famous might want the regular. The guy dismisses the supermodel as not being interested in him, foregoing a now opportunity, not even giving her a chance to consider things from her side of the table. So the dismissive statement, she’s out of my league, leaves her view out of the equation and doesn’t permit further review and consideration. The easy no prevails, rather than the more risky maybe that leaves some consideration on both sides of the table. But I didn’t have my own permission anyway I couldn’t allow myself to date a rich, supermodel. All this portrays how there are many views to consider, not just your own that can affect things now.

It’s almost like we are waiting for someone to give us permission to get going now. I didn’t pass somebody’s test on this, so where is the permission?

With the procrastination, I have for the time being withdrawn permission and I need to obtain that permission back.

Part of this is we are so used to taking tests that we think we need to take and pass a test to have permission to do things now. Tests are seen as permission that gave the floor to walk on. After school, we feel we still need to take a test and pass it before we can move on to another course. It could be a moral test, a goodness test, a competence test, a know how test, an aptitude test or any other test we feel we need to pass to validate our entree into the now. So why don’t I just give you a test, if you pass the test, you’ll feel better and you will feel like you can proceed and go ahead now.

Permission could be a way of having a looser hold on our goals. I will pursue my goal, but I will permit the unknown variables to operate in that I can only monitor them at best and I cannot affect them at all times in ways that I can know or find out about. I will charter the unknown and unsheltered course, and brave the elements going across the plains to the West without knowing what fully is out there in the West.

I feel good about golf when I play, but I feel vaguely guilty about going to the golf course, because I don’t have a six-figure income, or seven-figure income yet. There are no absolute requirements as to what I need to have to enjoy myself. I need to shelter my time towards this one goal. When I get the dough, I can relax and go to the course and enjoy the game of golf. But when I check reality firmly, I find I can go to the golf course now and enjoy it now because I am good at the game now. I talk well with various golf partners now, and I can do this now, without keeping and preserving that artificial barrier I have superimposed upon my seaway of time, where I had segmented myself away from the game, foregoing what can be a respite and break for me now. I don’t need to sequester, I can walk the land with despite my pockets being relatively empty, basking in the sunshine of the now, because I can do this now. All I need now is the shirt on my back and I do have that shirt. And maybe you would get the next idea that would propel you to the higher income on the golf course, lightning strikes on the golf course as well and you can listen for the thunder there. You can fight your wars on the golf course. Wherever you can have a chance. You can commune with all of your interests under the open sky, strategizing on the move. Not knowing all the variables or what will actually beckon and when, I might try to control my outer environment, I fight to find the variables, I try to reduce my landscape and horizons to the controlling process, as I try to deny on some ends to control for the wanted variables on other ends. Where and how the variables will pop in and pop out I just don’t know. The control factor itself may be off. Can I control for the weather by mowing my lawn. Those factors may have no relationship. Can I control for world peace by giving my full attention to the news? Can I control for a higher grade by only studying more where only issues might sometimes come in. I might have to relinquish some control to the forces of chance to further find myself in the present. Maybe the variable that most applies in a particular case is finding an instructor with a more liberal grading policy. I go to a social event, what are the variables I need to control to have a good time? What are the variables making up the blend? Indeed those valued variables might be out of reach on all fronts, but do we know this now? So we look around and begin to give ourselves a more permissive landscape, not letting go of the script but start to ad lib a bit on it, realizing the script we having given to ourselves might be sanctimonious with stratospheric flying above the sanctimonious waters that I wanted to trough. So we can modify, abate, brushing aside or even scraping our highly charged script or have it flow to a lighter current. At least I started with some script. But I can work a revised script off any previous script. Then bonding again with the now in other ways, and giving permission to ourselves as if we could ever capture some of the now, and finally experiencing it as it is, bordering on new heights and other measures of greatness, or at least coming and running closer to the real in the now. And those variables can come at us with highly charged expectations, with a greater intensity that we had previously thought, so we don’t even know the force of the intersections and how strong each of the variables will be. There might be collisions of unknown proportions. When someone is running with the football, it assumed they will finally get tackled most of the time, absent of a touchdown, but it can be with a full charge of members from the other team, rather than just a trip up. The variable of the tackle can have varying degrees of intensity.

Can the closeness bring us real focus, with some tightening of the lens, the anchor might yet hold. If the sighting of land is actually possible as it finally was for Columbus, indeed we may be just on the border of finally getting there, because we never gave up on what we really wanted, and recognized it finally in the now, and finally did not brush away the paintings of our desire, with the water drops of the fierce rains.

Am I in the right location now? I am in the right state, the right country, the right century? Am I reading the right book now? Am I thinking the right thoughts now? I don’t know for sure. What happens is I fill in that void of not knowing with something negative as a proxy for decision-making material? However, I am using material that doesn’t have the proper substance to the situation. I really just don’t know and I shouldn’t fill that void in with presumed negativity. Those wide gaps in knowing that we are all subject to should be left open rather than filled with the negative. Don’t try and close the gap of not knowing with negativity, just say don’t know. Most of us do need a coach or somehow find a coach to help us recognize what could become now.

So close in the now, yet still so far away. To actualize on something, we may have to get a bit closer to it. You can’t shake a persons hand a million miles away. You can’t see a person with the naked eye a thousand miles away, unless you have Superman’s astounding eyesight. Just like you can’t see 1000 miles away, you can’t see 1000 days ahead. Neither sight affords you a view you just aren’t close enough. Of course, you don’t necessarily want the absolute closest view of the cliff either. You can get close to the now of reading a book if you actually open it, and turn your eyes from the TV or the ocean or anything else and actually look at a page. You can get closer the now of being at the game, if you get on the line for the ticket and stop circling the stadium. You can get closer to the pitchers mound, it you work on your curveball.

You can get closer to the now of hitting a jump shot, if you actually pick up a basketball and shoot it at the hoop. You might get closer to knowing another person in you have an actual conversation with them, taking that previously forbidden path. You can get closer to the sunrise of today, if you don’t let yourself sleep through that early alarm, and stop dreaming of the next century.

Well then, when is the waiting going to be over? When is the party going to begin? When can I start, when can you start. Patience is good but we can wait forever. I might be on a patient progression that will land me at the door of success in 2050. In the meantime, all sorts of doors closed behind me. I could have been progressing on several fronts at the same time and maybe one or some of them might have found a landing point in some present time. If we really want something, we can help ourselves out of the waiting mode at times, and this can help bring us to the now. Help yourself to a cookie now. I might be waiting for the next eclipse of the sun, the next appearance of the ice age, the reappearance of the dinosaurs, my next tour of space, but in the meantime, I could have seen the movie. Again, what I am going to do with the open spaces in between all those great events. I can do other things while I am waiting. We may be so used to waiting for our ship, that when it finally appears, I can’t make the move to get on it. The Nina, Pinto, and Santa Maria finally show up, but hey it’s 1992 not 1492 and it’s just too late. I was so set in my ways, that I was actually patiently frozen in my tracks, my tracks of disappointment, my tracks of unmet expectations, my tracks of lost vision and hope. In the meantime, I was waiting for that ship, I said no, not now, my ship is coming, while a limousine was coming to pick me up to take me to the private jet. Yeah, I walked away from the biggest storm, but I missed everything else that great sea offered me, from those who welcomed me right up front, from the appearances of those who were on the upcoming horizon for me, from them I turned away.

I might have waited out the winter but somehow all the seasons passed me by, I never saw the blooming of the seasons. I was looking for an exact season when other seasons where there for me. As I wasted away on a winter’s landscape, never even seeing the patches of the possible I totally closed my eyes, waiting words to wasting worlds. Spring I never met I never met her now she would have liked me.

I just went to a friend’s birthday party he was at the decade mark, which we celebrated. We all left, the host said he would have a party in 10 years, for the next decade mark, we would meet together in 2011. Humorous yes, it was not a joke, just a representation of the truth, those ten years between would be the forgotten grains in the woodwork, so much a part of what is a landscape for scant gatherings of the brotherhood.

So let’s not do it now, but make it ten years, let’s wait a year, why not 10, why not 20. I’ll trade for Mike Piazza in 2012. Let’s make a deal. The golden boy will still be golden, right? What is the rush? But how do we know that the variables, the intersections, the open doorways, might also be as unknown then as they are now. If I am dealing with unknowns now, why will everything be so certain later on? One thing is certain, uncertain conditions will prevail and the elements I am dealing with carry with them uncertainty in the far future. We may never get the script we first wanted, not now, or not later, so lets see what we can do with the now, allowing for secondary scripts to form. Acting on some parts of another script, actually catching some of today’s waves, while hoping for the good surf of tomorrow, remembering no matter what our good fortune and recompense may be tomorrow, I can’t reach my hand back into today, finding what I gave up for tomorrow. Lot ’s of good opportunities can be found on secondary paths . This opportunity in this day will be gone forever for everybody, not just me. Another chance will come around that hill, over that bend, but this glance is over. I might have given up this forever. We might still be able to keep an open mind towards the future, but also keep one of those open eyes on your present, even if you wear the pirates eye patch. One thing is certain and that is as I travel down this coast time is traveling with me Also don’t expect to be able to say, I’ll be more sure of this in the land of tomorrow, when we aren’t even sure footed about the path we do see. I can see now, I can hear now, and yet this road I’m on now is still uncertain.. My very next step might be in quicksand or put me over the cliff, which would you prefer. 20 percent certainty isn’t going to convert to 90 percent certainty even if there are better conditions tomorrow. I might be waiting for a conversion I am not going to get. Is this particular variable going to convert itself into a more known quantity? I have a 50 percent chance of getting a reliable weather prediction two days in advance, is this going to convert to 90 percent in the near future? So knowing the uncertainty factor will substantially remain with us going into that future, we don’t have to wait for certainty to do something now, because that certainty we want is never coming our way even though we might deserve it, or at least in the percentages we want, to the degree we want. It is just as likely percentage wise that the uncertainty for us will increase into the future, as it would likely decrease.

We categorically know the uncertainty remains, because the variables we are dealing with have uncertainty attached to them. If want to swim, I’ll have to go into the sea. If I could somehow be certain as to what the current will be and what each wave is like, and even then, other variables could impinge against the certainty I have obtained currently. The shark might like this surf as well, representing the third variable, and come and join you for a swim. And you thought you didn’t have any friends. Often, not now, not later, not before, not after, will I ever know the whole truth of what happened, what could have happened for I’m not going to find out later what really went wrong now. I’ll never know for sure what might have been on that road not taken it might have been great but the road just wasn’t taken so I didn’t get to see. If some of the elements are agreeable now , maybe we can take a chance, give it a go. If I can’t find all, maybe I can find some. Maybe at least the water is warm and friendly that way. Take those welcoming waters and put that surfboard to work. Listen to the tunes of the Beach Boys once more. Some tunes are still left against those lost and forgotten days against the landscape of what was once possible. So maybe I find I can still hit a home run , I can still run the bases. It doesn’t get better than this, one more wave, just for me. The waves say yes, permission is granted, ride those seas to heights once more.

Another reason to involve yourself now, to do it now, it to find out what you have going for you earlier, what your assets are, start to ring up that cash register early. There are high school, and grade school kids that could write a great novel right now but they are supposed to properly qualified to do this. You see some are child actors and already capitalizing on acting ability, which is currently present. To pick up a baseball bat at 40 and hit the ball 600 feet is something that you might have wanted to find out about earlier given the baseball contracts. You have your first slice of pizza at 99 and you like it. There have been pizza stores all over the place for the last 100 years, and you could have pursued this all along. But pizza has been absent from my life all this time and I could have been enjoying this many times over. So there is an argument for a least looking into or delving into something enough to where we can find out what the story is earlier rather than later. I can think about what I feel is absent from my life that I could have incorporated previously and taken with me as I went along . Try the different things now and see it you can take it and keep it going all the way along the coast. I can also say if I can find out earlier that I don’t like this, I would let go of the idea earlier, and create space that is more open now for something else. So exploration can be a valid reason for doing something now, even if you want to read in a different or unfamiliar genre, that is not going to give you direct financial gain, you could still justify the course by trying to find out now if you like say science fiction readings. So you can get into this interest throughout rather than at some further point down the road that is more of an endpoint. The testing process is something we agree to when we take many courses, which have this aspect. Why not allow ourselves to test our interests like we allow ourselves to be tested in a course, sooner rather than later and find out what we enjoy and would like to incorporate as we go along. Test for enjoyment, for fun, for good times, for fulfillment. If we don’t like it, we can drop the idea earlier rather than later, although no firm conclusions always need to be made, we can get the preliminary readings and data and a situational feel on potential courses and roads that we could journey. If I enjoy the prelim that can act as a sign on my road as I travel along. Even if you like a certain food for example, or a certain show, you would have to try it once to ascertain that. Give the situation a chance.

Another reason to consider the now is just remember how much time has already washed over the falls. Think of that trip you took ten or twenty years ago, the memories don’t seem as distant in time as the time really was, so this can have a sobering and not soothing effect on how quickly things move and why the presence of the now is significant. We can have reunions not only with people but also with interests, ideas, things we liked but didn’t pursue further in the past. One of the people we might have missed today was ourselves.

Another consideration to ponder is when we think of ownership, I may own a home, a boat, a collection of art, a wine cellar, or other tangible things. You lose your wallet and you say you lost something you owned. But how about this day being lost. If it’s not your day, then whose day is it to lose? It is not the day of the ancient Romans, or the Atlanteans in the lost kingdoms of Plato writings, or those knights from the roundtable in the Middle Ages. It is not the day of those future people that just aren’t here yet. This is the day you breath in, it’s yours and you should claim ownership to it if anyone does just like you own your material possessions .

I look over the vast and lovely brine, I ponder what still might be possible, if I can believe and heed the welcoming seas of today and tomorrow. As I travel along with the ship of time, that all my hopes aren’t pinned on uncertain futures, that I can begin to look at today’s shorelines as possible for me.

Some will say by sacrificing today, not partaking today, we might get more tomorrow. But present denial doesn’t always equate with a future payoff. Why and how did I firmly establish this equivalency? Why is not having something today equivalent to having it in the future. You automatically assumed this and didn’t think about what also had up front payoffs and rewards for now. Why do I automatically assume the worst, when there are several takes on the situation? Take your paycheck today and take it tomorrow. Open the coffers today. Good things might build on themselves. I can prosper today and I can prosper tomorrow. Today’s prosperity can contribute to tomorrow’s prosperity. I am trying to spread out my assets over time, budgeting what I can do now into an unseen and unknown future that might not arrive in the way I expect. Even if you are doing this, sowing for the future, spread out and sow something in the present. Does the one who sows just sow one little spot in this case being one little spot of time? Bring some of that Bell shaped curve into the present. Ponder the asset and ask yourself, is this asset usable in the present. If it has sales value now, then I should either sell it or keep it and use it. I can’t sell my athletic ability necessarily but maybe I should put a sales value on it just to help me realize it is worth something now. Why spread it thin to the future if only then and only when. If any of these days or any of those moments are going to be for you, why not this day and this moment?

Then sometimes we are waiting for now because we feel we need more preparation, more time, more money, or more of something that relates to the situation. But thinking of things globally, if I wanted to go from America to Europe in 1910 I wouldn’t say I’d wait until they have cross Atlantic flights. I wouldn’t wait for the invention of the telephone in 1810 if I wanted to talk to someone then. We have to make do with less if we have to and if we don’t have certain advantages, we might want to proceed without them. I can only work with so many tools of preparation and even those tools change over time and in the future. Then sometimes it is advantageous to see how you can do with less preparation. I give a speech ad lib and that can tell me something about my ability to give a speech ad lib. I can see how I can do without the props. Can I do well on a more spontaneous level in a specific instance and in a more generalized approach to living?

Then there can be many surprises coming our way that we can’t predict. Can we adjust to the surprises or did I just look for what I could find on the predictable road?

There is always some possibility of a big payoff as I mull along. What this big payoff is or could be would differ depending of what you want, but it could happen maybe anytime on the time line and come about in unexpected fashion. They will say, there is a pay off in the end, but is it only at the end, maybe it's at the middle and you can find the middle right away and get some pay off right away. But it is mistaken that you have total control over payoffs and how and when they might happen so you need to be somewhat alert to possibilities of that happening in the present.

Thinking about what makes someone qualified whether it be partially or fully qualified to do something can have implications for procrastination. I might not feel I qualify for this and I just delay on down that road. For example this person is considering whether to teach. She has the degrees and might just need a couple of courses on teaching. But what would make her feel qualified. Probably besides the courses the native interest, intelligence, and aptitude for the subject matters as well as an ability to impart it to others. But she might not totally feel this unless she actually taught for a stretch, and went ahead into the situation. Then she can cross check her own qualifications by observing already practiced teachers and see how she fits in with that group in terms of potential and performance.

This year I am hitting over .300 on my batting average half way through the season and I am hitting well in the clutch. This year I find the sun is up on my batting average and my clutch hitting. However, my fielding has been spotty and my home runs haven’t been consistent either. The key is that I try to improve in those other areas without unsettling and compromising say my swing so that I might swing only for the fences while disturbing my average, which is already there. In addition, I need to work on improving my fielding without having it affect the rest of my game. However, I need to separate each category in my thinking and continue to realize where the sun is up for me, which is my hitting for average.

Time might be traveling like a river who’s exact speed I cannot ascertain until maybe I am too far down the river to make the adjustments I wanted to make to the speed of the river. I could have gotten into proper flow earlier and thereby enjoyed this earlier.

To go forward I might want to have a drop down position, which still keeps me in the same area or arena I want to be in or stay in. I want to play basketball professionally but I don’t catch on with an NBA team then maybe I could drop down and play in Europe where I am still playing professionally. I want to climb Mt. Everest but the peak is more than what I am capable off right now so I drop down and find a peak that is still high but not quite as high or I just go three quarters of the way on the slopes of Everest. I am still climbing high peaks even in my drop down position. My drop down position might involve a new era in my life, or in the times around me. A newfound sense of maturity and vision can lead not only to greater heights, but also to a drop down position where contentment is found in areas that may have seemed foreign to my personal vision previously.

To go forward, this might involve levels of trust that I need to look towards. I’ll be all set if I get this, trusting that you’ll be able to proceed into it, that certain mechanisms will be in place. In some cases, getting into the present involves a restoration of trust or the beginnings of a new trust at new levels. I am starting to believe this and that is another basis of a new found trust that I can do this.

We don’t have to do this now, but if we are going to consider this in the future, why not give some consideration towards this right here and right now? You could at least consider now. You can still put consideration on anything for the future, while realizing, the tendency is that I’ll consider this later. You don't want to totally divorce yourself from consideration because this is the practice you want to keep. Do keep things under consideration and don’t outright say this is no longer under consideration unless you want this to be the case.

We have a tendency to put things into tiers. I’ll see you on the next tier. I have plenty of opportunities now on this tier but I want to get to the next tier or stage before I consider the opportunities on this stage. Or I think the opportunities will only be on the next tier and will only be better on the next stage. But a piece of pie is a piece of pie whether I get it here or there, or anywhere. Then I might have an audience now, on this stage. An audience that might appreciate me for some good reason right now, right then and right there. But the next tier if it comes the bend, will be later, so how do I get to the now if I am always ahead of myself? Moreover, some summits could be found on the first tier.

We have ourselves grounded maybe to never take off again. Part of the problem is we are in the movie, we aren’t actually watching the movie. Realistically most of us need a personal coach. If you watch a movie you can speculate on the character development but you are in the watchful eye of the observer. It is easy to see what the character should do as you see more of the big picture. But we who are in the movie are not seeing the bigger picture and we miss out on now opportunities for a lack of vision. I am too close to the story. And who I am in this movie, doesn’t tell me about who I could be in another movie. Look at some of the actors who always played the part of the villain, stereotyped into one role forever, however good they were at that role. Get yourself in another frame and see how that goes.

We might get so busy that some real opportunities that never get picture framed as now. The busyness can serve as well as a built in excuse not to explore the new and unfamiliar now. The busyness box becomes like a blinding storm, blotting out real options and desires that I could have addressed, had I been able to spot them in the windswept chaos. And they told me to think outside the box sometimes. And that's another things, pick some of your ideas off the canvas and do something with one or some of them.

We might want to introduce something new to the present that we might feel good about. We can take an optimistic approach to that something as new and exciting. Think of your favorite hobby, one that might consume a lot of your time and interests. Perhaps you could introduce something new that you could optimistically find as interesting and as exciting as your favorite hobby. Say your long-standing hobby has been baseball or painting, imagine introducing something new that could be just as exciting and interesting for you, really an equivalent hobby, and maybe just as long standing and long lasting from now on. It could be say writing fiction. It becomes another favorite hobby. You can find something new that has big meaning for you and catches on for you. You then have another major hobby to look to and that has real equivalency to what you already had and might still have but now you are retaining more self positive interests.

What am I looking at now? Your lawyer says, you are looking at 3 to 5. The judge comes back with 6 to 10. All the sudden, you are looking at a something different.

What else do you have going for you that you could associate with now? By not making the association, I am leaving out part of a bigger picture or another part of the picture of another picture. If I go to the museum, I can of course look at one part of a great painting, but there are and were other parts to the picture I can easily overlook that might have had real pertinence for me.

What happens also is that things tend to snowball of prior scenarios and scenes. You might have been in the wrong scene for you but the tendency is to fall back on the prior scenes. I can imagine not only forward but backwards so that I can play off the way I could have been which might be closer to the truth of who I am anyway. I put the better case scenarios not only in front of me but also behind me. Because indeed I would feel better about moving forward if I was working from better scenarios in the past. I can then inject those better than scenarios into my past meanderings, and if they have a ring of truth in that it could have possibly been that way, I can then move forward with more confidence into the future. But what happens is we get stuck on what actually happened, as opposed to what might have happened. We play of the limited scenes from our past that could have been different in so many ways. So because of that lock in effect of those past scenes, they affect how we move into the future. If I can make believe that yesterday was a great day, even though it wasn’t, just to get movement towards another scene today that seems less plausible now because I am still under the grip of yesterday's missteps, or it still works somewhat of a hold on me and this hold is not for my betterment now. I can rewrite the past in a way that gets me more hopeful towards today’s chances, thereby giving me more of an impetus to act on these chances in a beneficial way to all concerned. Even if I didn't make that leap then, maybe I could have and would have and then I WOULD feel differently now. Whatever I want to do or accomplish, I can imagine that I have been doing this in some form all along. For some, this kind of mental gymnastics might be useful is getting past the stuck phase and actually moving into the wanted areas of exploration.

What happens is that sometimes we don’t get our associations right and we don’t associate this with having anything to do with now. A personal example for me is that when I have thought about China I always thought of the big population that speaks a language I could never understand. I walked into a Chinese restaurant and they had a huge picture on the wall of just a beautiful scene in China with groups of people by lush mountainous terrain in a beautiful setting by a river with rich mansions in view of this relaxed setting. I never really pictured people in China relaxing to great scenery. I had never made the association.

What is going to get you on track with this now? For example, I want to get on track with running a marathon. I will set aside a half hour a week for the training. Is this setup going to get me on track to successfully running a marathon? I want to get into socializing and meet some new people. I’ll go out once a month. This might work but it might fall short of my hopes. I might need to widen the track I want to get on. I might want to then leave once a week for socializing and I might want to widen the track for the marathon goal and train an appropriate number of miles per week to correlate my training to the distance of the marathon. I am not going to get on track with some things unless I have a roomier track. Going to the gym once every six weeks is not necessarily going to get me muscle bound. Looking at the travel channel on TV is not necessarily going to get me Europe bound unless I look into some action on this.

What is nearly present, or almost here? Just because it’s almost here, nearly present, doesn’t mean we are going to get there if we continue to hold off.

What is the first order of the day? Can you really want and why can’t that be now? If you continually ask that question what is the first order of the moment, the day this week, this year I can begin to juggle my priorities so what I really want comes into the front at least some of the time.

What is the next step on the train? What will be the next stop on the train? Maybe I made my first stop on the train, which was to read some books, but my next stop was to read fiction and I never got there.

When am I going to begin to unravel some of the mysteries of the present? The mysteries of my most heartfelt desires, my grandest visions, my ever-changing but most present view. I can unravel some of these gifts, talents, ideas, and forward adventures that have ignored and kept unwrapped for some distant days that I can’t even begin to see now and I can claim rightful ownership to this day, even if it isn't what I envisioned isn't it still my day, your day? . Can I unravel my fears of the unknown and begin a new adventure in the present.

Whistle while you work. You can strategize while you are on the move. You don’t have to be in a standstill position to strategize. I can think of new ideas while I am working out in the gym or running through the forest. I can give the present more of a proper inspection if I will be willing to go ahead now in some form or shape that can be had. By first meeting with the present, you can dialogue with it and make the appropriate adjustments as you feel your way through. Just like it is easier to have a discussion with someone who is close by rather than shouting in the distance, it is easier to dialogue with your opportunities if you bring them at little closer.

Why does everything I seem to want to do seem to be so far?

Why is your devotion always to the future or some past meanderings at the expense of now? So you got lost then, luckily it wasn't even worse and to a degree now your back. Welcome to you and I’m glad you are back right with us in the present. The better day always seems to take precedence but even the bad day can have something or contain something of real importance to me.

Within this mixed message, what happens is that the present or the now becomes crowded out, partly due to the information explosion. Things get so crowded, that the now gets pushed aside. There is so much on the plate and standing at the gate ready to rush in, that I don't even know which race I'm in, how can it all fit into the now format? I might have crowded out what was best for me. Then I need to see why I agree with crowding out the present. I am trying to avoid some sort of confrontation with a part of me I would rather see show up sometime in the far future or maybe never?

Working so hard isn’t always going to get me into the particular flow I really want. I have to look at more than just working hard and consider what is representative of flow and what that flow could be.

You are given ten years in which to play baseball. You can play baseball from year one. However, you decide to play baseball in year ten and find you are really enjoying it. Then, you ask yourself, why didn’t I start playing baseball years earlier and I wish I had more time left to play baseball. But your ten year time frame is just about to end so you all you can do is just get in as many games as you can now, while indeed realizing you could have been doing this all along and some of that wish fulfillment could have happened earlier and I could have had a longer run at this.

You can examine your different levels of willingness. You might have partial willingness towards something and at the same time that might serve as an audition towards a further willingness. If you have an inkling you can investigate what that really means.

You could meet your dream girl while walking past this garbage heap, and then bring her to the next tier, a Broadway play.

You might never get the full achievement you first wanted. But there still might be half achievement or a third achievement that still might be actually obtainable if you go forward now. Even if you don't fully achieve your goals, you can get some of way on them without trashing them because you didn't get the full result or outcome you had wanted.

You might not feel you are at the best branch out point but people branch out from many different positions, not everyone arrived on the same train.

A lot of getting into the present relates to self-giving. Can I give myself something today? Despite my troubles and disappointments yesterday and even today which seem to continually cloud my way, do I have to let this take away this day away too, or can I give myself some of this today in a way that may still matter and may still make me happy, and give this day just a little chance on the podium? Can I give a green light to the present despite so many red lights on my roadway that had caused a pileup of my dreams? On the roadway of what I wanted?

A lot of what can be positive right now for you and me might require some real adjustments on our part. We need to first see that we are in need of an adjustment to meet with this present chance and then see how and if we can adjust. This could be a great opportunity, if I can ever adjust to it and make it happen that way, by adjusting or by reminding yourself that proper adjustments might need to be made and even that if is their it will actually require an adjustment.

A person of the opposite sex walks by and gives you their cell phone number. You call them back in the next century and at this point people are taking vacations in outer space and this particular person since met someone else. Why didn’t you make the association that this phone number has something to do with a possible call back in this century? You never made that association that this had something to do with sometime in the now. If you had made an association with the present, then this would also carry with it some permission. Because this is associated in some way with now, I must be permitted to make the association into the present and see it that way. If I’m associating with something even in small ways, I have to ask what is on the permissive landscape of this. I have a minor association with say hiking, surely I am permitted to hike with the outline of reasonable safety precautions.

Whatever associations I am presently finding, can I begin to anticipate not only their pretended or bona fide value in the future but can I also anticipate some of the present value of these associations and grant some permission to these present associations. This association may in fact have pretext for the future, but it has to be brought forth at some point for this pretext to take place and that point is somewhat artificially determined, as permission is there now therefore other factors are determinative not the permission factor.

A sports example might be if I go to a block of ten baseball games and I study the players, I could see how these players made out years later. If I go to a country to tour or visit, I will always have that frame of reference as to when I read about that country in the future. By proceeding, there is a chance that I will generate a new interest that I can follow up again at another time with the added perspective that I have obtained. I might spark a continued interest but either way I have preceded into something that gives me background for the future. This can be done in school by writing a paper on an unfamiliar topic which you will need to research for the paper. Years later you will have some background on the subject from this research paper and you can see what did happen since and compare to your previous research.

How long have you been off the river on what you want to do? I might have been off the river on riding a bicycle, traveling to other states, attending musical concerts or going to plays for a number of years at this point.

An example is I get terrible news. I assimilate myself to this and ready myself to deal with the consequences. Then the good news comes and I think I can automatically just adjust back to it and be happy about it. But sometimes people have difficulty doing this, they have readied for the storm that didn’t come but they can’t steady themselves for the sunshine.

An example is, I’ll only socialize when I’m finally in that higher income class, that next tier that is going to be so great when I get there. Assuming I don’t stumble again in some ways when I get there. When I get to the next tier, I might realize I let options and opportunities to socialize I really did have back in the first tier go by the wasteland as that first tier ended for me. If I was going to delay, at least I could have done so in a way that preserved some of my options all the way through and preservation doesn't always work as sometimes I am in a flowing river. I had to get to this tier, everything else was outside of this wanted tier, as barren to me as the distant planets landscape on that first tier, which actually could have been fruitful land for me then. Then even on the second tier, I might be pushing things off into yet another tier, the third tier and I repeat the process. I cycle my way into a continuous round of cycles that doesn’t find anything worthwhile in the present. So now becomes compromised away again, because I didn’t reach the tier I think I must go to no matter what. I keep seeing my opportunities as being on some other tier that I haven’t gotten to yet and interestingly is always seemingly out of reach at the moment. Then I am so used to things being just out of reach, that is when they become within reach, it just isn’t their proper place and I put them just out of reach again, because that is where everything is supposed to be and then how can I strive for things out of reach when they aren’t out of reach anymore and can be had rather easily now? Somewhere over the rainbow, skies will be blue. But I can’t even find the rainbow, as it remained elusive. I followed the yellow brick road but I never quite make it to Oz. I let the wicked witch win because I was too focused on the future and I let the wicked witch claim the present and I missed that wonderful walk with Dorothy and friends.

An example of this could be the crowded stadium, where the chance of meeting up with any one person now becomes crowded out into a low probability range. For example, now those have cable TV with 300 channels so that some of the individual shows have to get lost in the crowd, drowned out in that channel surf. Maybe I am letting some individual and personal plans I have get lost in the crowd of what is out there. I throw my own hopes out there and let them get lost in the cross fire of all else or someone else’s vision that I can't get my own eyes behind.

Another example is I want to write a novel. What qualifies me for this? I know the language, I can read, and I do have an imagination that can be operative in greater or lesser degree. I know how to type and I have a pen I can write with on paper as well. Well, I could start to write a novel and by also reading novels I can see whether my own beginnings at writing is in somebody’s ballpark as I check out the scene not by procrastinating but in moving into the area in several fashions, by both reading other peoples work and exploring my own ideas. I can bring myself into an new arena. I might see that I am doing as well as some other people from what I can discern and that seems to qualify me to continue writing my own novel. By both reading novels and writing my own, I am moving forward within this area and lessening the procrastination. At the same time, I can better reference my own qualifications towards this endeavor by this forward look.

Another thing I might think is that I see things as available monopolies that can’t be broken. Somebody and some people have all of this and I have none of this. Then I even extend this idea to luck. Someone else has all the luck. All these good things are out there, but I can’t get in the club. But a second look might show that maybe the landscape is a bit more dispersed and all these good things aren’t necessarily well fortified as monopolies. An example might be that the single population is dispersed after college. I need to find ways to see availability of what I want. I might actually secretly wish that these things are blocked by monopolies and then I have my excuse when in fact my road is open and I can go in this direction now.

I might want to work within a narrow band at times. I can feel I can read every book known to humanity but for now, I will concentrate on this book or round of books. I would love to be at every beach on the coast but for the next few days, I’ll concentrate on getting to this particular beach. What I am doing is trying not to procrastinate within my narrow band. I can open up the band wider whenever I want, but I am artificially limiting it in my thinking just to get moving in a particular direction or area of concern. This can backfire if I keep doing this and that narrow band becomes not artificial but real to me and I end up limiting myself that way, but this can be useful to get me out of immediate procrastination.

Say I am looking for ten times the money right about now. This might involve subjecting to forces of the market which aren't often up to me and my say in the matter. However, without subjecting myself to the forces of the market, I might be able to get ten times the creativity, ten times the intellectual stimulation, ten times the affect of new scenery and unfamiliar surroundings right about now. I can get ten times the excitement of adventure right now. I can get that ten times right now in some key areas. Some areas might be readily affable or agreeable to my seeking ten times.

I might also have the problem of being overly dedicated. It is good to be determined but I might be so dedicated to this idea, this course, this way of doing this, that I end up holding off on other approaches or my determination itself gets me tangled up as I can’t just sift through things on the basis of determination only. For example, I want to travel to an exotic country. The particular country I want to travel to is involved in political unrest and there is a current ban on traveling to this country. I will wait patiently for my next chance to travel to this country, when in the meantime other available countries that will offer me exotic scenery right now, and I have the means to get there now.

Applications are important. Where does this apply? How does this apply? With whom does this apply? No matter what question we can come up with, the second question that can be tacked on to the first, is when does this apply, or simply when? The applicability of something can be way off the mark. I am applying something in a fashion that is just not appropriate. I apply sunscreen on a torrentially rainy day.

What is going to lift the lid off the present? The question is, when?

As I am sitting by the seashore, sadly watching another day go by, as that always again observer and spectator, I can ponder if and when I will ever want to participate in anything myself. Think about the baseball games you and I might go to. I just accept that I will be a spectator even if I was good enough to play for the Yankees, I didn’t follow that route, and I accept I will not be on that field. So I accept my scenario. However, other areas are not so defined and maybe I could actually participate because the shadow that says no hasn't passed me by yet. I can cross some borders. If I am watching a play maybe I am participating. If I read about a play, I am not so sure about also being a participant, but I am still finding and participating in the thoughts of the play on the stage. If I act in the play, I am definitely a participant but I might also be so focused on my performance that I lose insight into the play that way.

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