It’s been established that most human beings are completely disengaged with now, with this constant presence of life that flows through and around us all, within this primordial moment of all that is.

But our internal motivator demands attention.

With our busy lives we barely make time for ourselves, but oddly enough we tend to make the most time for what hasn’t even happened.

In doing so, in being disengaged, we come to understand little of this vast ocean of life and of ourselves. Like the stars, strung together as pearls along their heavenly tapestry, we are largely inexplorable to the naked eye of others, just as much as to ourselves.

We humans should take our presence in this world to mean much more than we care to believe, especially for what energy our thoughts can generate.

We have a sphere of consequence hanging about our hearts that manifests often, usually out of worry or want. It is in this form that we forget time itself and begin our engagement with that which does not truly serve our purpose, to that which makes self-discovery nearly impossible. And we do this so often that it becomes our life.

But life needs no motivator.

One of my favorite philosophers is of the French Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne. It was his quote on life that became stuck in my mind many years before.

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”

What this eludes to is the fact that we worry so much over the future and conjure the most horrific scenarios of life for ourselves, some of which would easily be a Lifetime movie screenwriter’s finest work.

I myself cannot begin to count the times I’ve daydreamed life situations that might make sense at the time, but what a waste of time they actually are. Whether it be projecting myself into a situation of having to fight for my life, or conjuring the image of a loved one’s untimely death, these thoughts come as a flicker of consciousness and recede just as quickly. And, not to be morbid in having these thoughts, but the thought of losing someone close to me is so painful that the worry itself manifests at times.

It is an innate tendency for us to do this, to live beyond our own personal realities, to conjure hypothetical scenarios, to have thoughts of both horror and of grand triumph. But these thoughts sadly are most often prompted by our fears.

But this is disengagement.

This is living outside of ourselves.

We worry so often about what may befall us or happen to those we love that we forget to embrace this moment as it exists now. And it is true, a person who worries does truly care, but we must command our caring to be present, instead of living in an alternate reality that will never come to be.

It is this primal fear that we must control.

Though we can learn from it, we must not let it run our lives.

Some call it an internal motivator, this underlying fear that runs the machine of life. But this is not true motivation. Sure, it may lead us to get things done, to protect ourselves, our homes and our families, but it does not run our hearts, our passions or become our inspiration.

The way I see it, fear is an external motivator. For it is what exists outside of ourselves that we learn to fear.

Instead, I say..

Embrace the motivation of now. Become aware of your worries, and conquer the stale fog that inhibits living authentically. It is in recognizing our strengths that we may defeat our fears.

Be present, and remember,

The fear of suffering is still suffering.

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