Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday

Tolstoy observed that love can’t exist off in the future. Love is
only real if it’s happening right now. If you think about it, that’s true
for basically everything we think, feel, or do. The best athletes, in the
biggest games, are completely there. They are within themselves,
within the now.
Remember, there’s no greatness in the future. Or clarity. Or
insight. Or happiness. Or peace. There is only this moment.
Not that we mean literally sixty seconds. The real present
moment is what we choose to exist in, instead of lingering on the past
or fretting about the future. It’s however long we can push away the
impressions of what’s happened before and what we worry or hope
might occur at some other time. Right now can be a few minutes or a
morning or a year—if you can stay in it that long.
As Laura Ingalls Wilder said, now is now. It can never be
anything else.
Seize it!
Who is so talented that they can afford to bring only part of
themselves to bear on a problem or opportunity? Whose
relationships are so strong that they can get away with not showing
up? Who is so certain that they’ll get another moment that they can
confidently skip over this one? The less energy we waste regretting
the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have
for what’s in front of us.
We want to learn to see the world like an artist: While other
people are oblivious to what surrounds them, the artist really sees.
Their mind, fully engaged, notices the way a bird flies or the way a
stranger holds their fork or a mother looks at her child. They have no
thoughts of the morrow. All they are thinking about is how to capture
and communicate this experience.
An artist is present. And from this stillness comes brilliance.
This moment we are experiencing right now is a gift (that’s why
we call it the present). Even if it is a stressful, trying experience—it
could be our last. So let’s develop the ability to be in it, to put
everything we have into appreciating the plentitude of the now.
Don’t reject a difficult or boring moment because it is not exactly
what you want. Don’t waste a beautiful moment because you are
insecure or shy. Make what you can of what you have been given.