 How we look at time is such a flexible thing. What does it mean to have our picture of time that we have in our minds? Of course we've all heard the standard statement that nothing really exists but the present and the past and the future are only in our imagination. To go to the past we reconstruct these memories and to the future we imagine what might happen but both of those are imaginary and it's only in the present that we actually exist that we actually have experience and consciousness. The rest is all this kind of reconstructed and imagined picture. So the way that we picture the past and the present can completely change how we look at life and how we experience life. Now the most innocent and the most basic and in many ways the best approach is to simply be entirely in the present to simply have no concern with the past and the future. That can be a very powerful state where we are awakened to the present moment without always comparing what's going on to the past and the future. But of course it's not practical to do this all the time, not as far as I know. It doesn't seem to be practical as much as it's an ideal of this kind of living in the present, this kind of mindfulness, consciousness. This is an ideal and yet we do have to, it seems like we do have to use the past and the future to help guide our lives. But it seems like the problem is that we take it too far. It's very useful to build up a picture of the past and so that we have some idea of where we come from, what things have been like before and that helps to predict the future. I mean even down to like a simple thing like you say gravity, which is a great, gravity is always a great example to use when you just want this purely physical example of just like an absolute law that you have to learn it and there's no escape from it and you just simply learn to live within this law that okay, when if I throw something up into the air it will come down. How do I know it will come down? Well it's kind of like a memory. We have memories of things falling and so through that we can sort of figure out this idea that there is gravity and then this is something that will happen again. And you can extend that to the things in our personal lives, our personal histories you could say where we make certain decisions and then find out what the result is and then decide whether to do it again or not. So it may be like someone could say don't drink a dozen drinks on an empty stomach but then you might just take that as yet another piece of advice because everybody's giving advice, okay? But if you actually did it you might certainly very reasonably come to the conclusion that it's not something to do again and because that was in history, that was in your personal history in your past as you reconstruct it as you imagine it you have this memory and the memory helps to guide the future. And these are the extreme examples of you know don't jump over, don't jump off a building and don't drink a dozen drinks on an empty stomach, okay? But this applies to everything, we help to guide our decisions through our experience in the past. And for the future our idea of what the future can be can also help us to guide our actions. If we want to avoid certain future outcomes, being prematurely killed or imprisoned or causing pain to people and all these kind of things we want to avoid and that's sort of an imagined possible future that we avoid. And then we could have futures that we want to move towards. That could be like our life goals and a vision of the life that we want to live and then we can take steps to move towards it. So all of these things make for very useful tools in guiding our actions. But where it goes too far is that we really build the story of the past and future into this whole history, it becomes this whole kind of series of events just like a story, a narrative for our lives. And the mistake is really then to continue to treat the present to treat the present like it is simply another chapter in that story. Because of course it makes sense, everything you're doing now in the present by tomorrow it will all be in your past and so it will be another page in your personal history. So everything that's living in the present right now will very soon be history. And everything that is history now, at one point it was the present for you. So of course it's understandable to just see the present as being you know, I wake up today, okay here's the new page in my history and in my story. But the problem is that all the past that we bring to today, we can use it as a tool to help us make decisions. But it also is something that can weigh very heavily on the present. It's like seeing today as the next page in the book, the next chapter, even the next chapter or just another page in the chapter as the book of life continues, it's like when you start a new page of a book you still have all that weight of the book that came before it. The memory of everything that came before, it's sort of looming over the day. It's like it gives you an expectation of how you expect the day to unfold. Of course every day can be full of surprises. Every page can have a surprising new twist and yet there's a certain expectation, certain parameters, a certain style even that we expect to continue. Yeah, especially like a story we could say well there could be very surprising events in the story but we don't expect a story to suddenly change style on a new page. So as we go through our days, we go through life and we sort of write this personal history of our memories and it takes on a certain style. Our life takes on a certain flavor and a certain style. And when the new day begins, when the new page, the new chapter begins, we kind of carry on this style automatically because we're continuing the same story. So it's possible to get stuck inside a particular style of life, a particular style of viewing life, a style of interpreting events. And we interpret everything new that's coming in the light of the existing history that we've already written for ourselves. So just like with so many things that seem to trouble us, these are tools that are actually helpful but they get out of control. Just like this kind of comfort seeking defensive behaviors which are meant to help us can go out of control and then keep us locked in a shell. Fear to avoid dangerous situations is there to help us but then it can get out of control into general anxiety. And the same thing here, using our past, using our history to help guide our future, to guide our present and our future is a useful tool that we have. But when it gets out of control, then our present life is living under the shadow of history, under the weight of its history. So that everything new that comes in the day is interpreted with sort of a reference and within the parameters and expectations that were built up earlier in our story. So sometimes what I like to do to think about this in a different way is simply imagine starting a new book. Imagine that everything in your life so far is a previous book and that today you are starting a new book. That would be very inefficient. You can imagine just like to be always, every day it's like you write a new book. You start the first page of a new book and then it's done. Next day you move on to a new book. If you look at it that way it seems kind of silly but you really can do that. Your entire past is a complete book and the new day beginning is the beginning of a new book. Not only a new book, you're not even limited to that format. You can be free to change the style of the way that you tell the story of your life. It doesn't have to be in this Chronicles book style. Today could be a comic book. Today could be a newspaper. Today could be a TV show. Today could be a YouTube video. Today could be a song, a dance. Today could be a mime. How many genres? How many styles can you imagine? You really have the possibility to make your new day be interpreted in a new way and not as yet another day in the ongoing story. I find when I do that when I think of today as day one of a new story that it really helps me to have that blank page feeling to be able to start fresh. I'd be curious to hear what sort of genre... How could you imagine telling the story of your day? What sort of genre could you imagine? What kind of style could you imagine telling the story? But first, just live the day. You can tell the story later.