I recently finished reading the book "The Power of Now" by the author Eckhart Tolle. This is a bestseller that came out in the 1990's that some of you have probably come across already. The central idea of the book is that the mind is only a tool to be used by human beings in order to achieve goals/overcome obstacles.
However, we often wrongly allow our minds to control us. This leads to many of us living in the past or living in the future while our life passes us by; in other words we avoid living in the NOW.
For those of us living in the past we often dwell on experiences such as wrongs we have suffered (e.g. a bad relationship) or past glories (e.g. I think of how some people are obsessed with World War II); for those of us who live in the future we are often striving to achieve goals we set ourselves (e.g. completing an MBA; acquiring a certain car; buying a certain house) so every day we don't live in the present instead we live in terms of how far we have reached in the pursuit of those goals.
This is very relevant to the business/tech areas that we cover here. For example, on the business side you may have the idea to start your own business or project however you are prevented from doing so by your own worst enemy: Yourself! Often times you may give excuses such as "Once I gain some more years of experience then I can launch my own business" or "My last business idea was not well received, I probably shouldn't bother to push it any more". On the tech side, this school of thought is in keeping with the Agile philosophy of project management/ software development where there is no longer a work plan that is "set in stone" where deliverables from previous stages must be in place before the project can proceed.
I should point out that it is still important to remember the past and take note of lessons learned in order to avoid making the same mistakes while at the same time we do need to set goals for the future in order to give our actions some direction. However, these plans and goals are only needed to help to improve our NOW.
Written by
Matthew Stewart.