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32. There's No Tomorrow

There's no yesterday either, there's only Now. When you think, as you must sometimes, of tomorrow (or yesterday) you are, at that moment, still in the Now. Your thoughts of a time different from what is happening at the moment are still happening in that moment.

Let's parse this out. If I'm thinking of my two parakeets, I'm thinking about them now. If I'm thinking about my deceased father, I'm thinking about him now, that is, whenever I'm thinking about him. Any memories that I gin up (or any future tripping) are always happening. That's "ING", happening. Simply stated, I'm always thinking in the Now.

So what you say? So plenty. If I choose to be sad or any other emotion, then I'm doing it at that moment. Suppose I change my thinking from sad to joyous. That's in the Now too. I can flip-flop back and forth any damn time I want. And you know what? Every single time I choose to feel bad, I feel bad. And every single time that I choose to feel joyous, I feel joyous.

Okay, now I'm grinning like a banshee or the village idiot no matter what happens to me. Just like the Christian saints who bandied about with their executioners. Just like a few Jews who, purportedly, joked on their way to their deaths.

What kind of life is that? Isn't that madness? Don't you have to emotionally respond in an "appropriate" manner? What kind of human do you become if you continually respond to everything with joy? I'll tell you what kind: a happy joyous human.

I'm learning how to do this and I've run into a problem. Not with me, I'm fine, but with those around me when they are choosing to feel sad. They get annoyed and so here's what I do. I don't show my joy. I just put on a poker-face and say very little or nothing at all. So far it's working like a charm. And after all, they are part of my life (even those in a saloon) and I love them and they are entitled to whatever they choose.

When I respond I'm determined that it's going to be the way I want to respond. If it's sad (about something I want to feel sad about) then I'm sad. But honest Injun, folks, there's very little to feel sad about.

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