"People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness…They don't realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe." -Eckhart Tolle

   This eve's sunset delivers a beauty easy to enjoy so long as we live in it. It's beauty fades the moment someone says, "Yes, but tomorrow, the weather will be terrible."  

   Which room in our life's home holds happiness? 

   Is it the library where memories line the bookshelves? Is it the attic from whose windows we can scan the horizon for the future?

   So much of our lives is spent sifting the past in search of happiness. So many of our hours are occupied with anticipation for a moment other than now.

   The patient down the hall worries about his surgery the next morning. His anxiety taints his current experience. It is as if he is already in surgery even though he remains in his room. 

   The nurse filling out her charts spends part of each day imagining her retirement – even though it is five years away. An anticipated event, something she may not even live to see, obscures whatever joy may exist in the moments she is living. 

   Between memory and anticipation lies the elusive "now."

   Why do we find such difficulty embracing this moment – even if it is painful? Why, in the middle of our highest joys, do we hear Fear warning us that our happy "moment" will soon be over?

   On vacations, I have heard people moan, "I only have three more days before I have to go back to the salt mines." An ending they dread suddenly crushes the present. 

   It's no good telling ourselves to quit wasting our good times. Telling ourselves not to do something means we must literally think of the thing we are not wanting to do. 

   Near term, the only solution is to shift our attention to what we love now. 

   Tragedy can mar any moment. Happiness can make a brief landing by delivering the right sequence of lottery numbers.

   Serenity does not depend on either occurrence. 

   Success in building inner joy – the kind that is stable – comes from cultivating the fields of Love that often lie fallow within us.

   I don't write this because I'm great at practicing this wisdom. I write it because it's true. Joy can be lived.

   Obviously, we can't ignore the past or pretend not to care about the future. But we can move our energy so that it dwells as much as possible in the now.

   "Accept the present moment," Tolle writes, "and find the perfection that is deeper than any form and untouched by time."

-Erie Chapman

Photograph – "Blue Sunset" copyright erie chapman 2012