Life Unfolds in the Present

From “The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment,” by Jay Dixit, Psychology Today (Nov-Dec 2008):

We live in the age of distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that your brightest future hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present…Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what's past.

1. To improve your performance, stop thinking about it (unselfconsciousness).
2. To avoid worrying about the future, focus on the present (savoring).
3. If you want a future with your significant other, inhabit the present (breathe).
4. To make the most of time, lose track of it (flow).
5. If something is bothering you, move toward it rather than away from it (acceptance).
6. Know that you don't know (engagement).

[Thanks Janine!]