Joy in your “Now” Moments.
The Now moments are the active, and lively moments. You use the Now moments to talk about the past and future moments. Time should be seen as a progression from the REMEMBERING (past or gone) to the EXPERIENCING (Now, active or lively) to the EXPECTING (next, maybe or yet to come) moments.
Just being in the moment alone is not enough. It is about you wholly living mindfully and thoughtfully in that moment that can enable you to fully unleash your joy.
Let’s say you and your friends are having a great time together while gathered around the fireplace on a camping trip. However, your mind goes off and starts thinking about how one of your friends was badmouthing you in front of a group two years ago, and you are also thinking about the time you are going to spend to pack your camping stuff and drive home at the end of the camping trip. Technically, you are in the experiencing moments but your mind has traveled back in time to wander and ponder over something that is no longer active, and your mind has fast-forwarded itself to your expecting moments to start stressing about a task that is not yet active. You are therefore not unleashing joy in the “now” because your attention is not being fully paid to its joyous feelings. You are using the Now moments which are real and active to focus on the past and future moments, which are not real and active. you needed to focus on your friends, your time together, their laughter, the warmth of the fire, the gentle breeze, the birds singing in the woods and more.
If you are not actively paying attention to what is happening in the “Now” Moments, you can miss the experience of unleashing your happiness even if you are doing your favorite and coolest thing.This happens when you allow your mind to go off from the present to start wandering in the past and future moments. You can miss those active feelings of happiness in the experiencing moments when you focus more on dwelling in the past while grumbling, complaining, and regretting over past failures, disappointments and other forms of life circumstances. The same miss of an opportunity to unleash true joy in the moments can happen when you focus on overthinking or imagining the happenings in the future moments.