“Where are you? Here
What time is it? Now
What are you? This moment.”
―Dan Millman
I saw this quote and I thought that this was exactly how I felt this morning as I headed out on my hike. Total immersion in the now.
I Am Here
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Early April Sunset
“The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present. You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you plan or hope for.”
―Dan Millman
If you have had a chance to look through The Zen Hiker, you’ll know that I love sunsets (who doesn’t?) and naked trees. I think that we can all agree that the reasons to love a sunset are plentiful and obvious. Naked trees, however, might be a harder sell.
So, the pictures below have those two things together. As the sun started to set this evening, my daughter remarked that the colors were much darker than usual. Grabbing my camera, I went outside to get a picture of the sunset. Here’s what I got.
The view from my backyard. Naked trees and a sunset!!
After I took this picture, I turned around to change my lens and saw the sunset on the trees behind me. It had an eerily calming effect on me as I prepared to take another picture.
A very cool view of the trees behind my house.
This third and final picture was taken about 15 minutes after the first one. The only thing that could have made taking these photos any better was if I had been out camping and was able to get the same shots.
It’s Now Or Never
“Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness–if you had little time left to live–you would waste precious little of it! Well, I’m telling you…you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason–or you will never be at all.”
Dan Millman
This quote sends a very powerful message. One that not many people think about it. Whether you like it or not, you are, in fact, dying. The process began the second you were born. I can tell you that in my twenties, thirties and even into my forties, I was so wrapped up in the intricacies of every day life that I never gave death a thought. Now that I have ventured into my fifties, I have come to the realization that I have much less time on the earth than I have spent on it.
This is an odd feeling. I find myself thinking about my mortality and how it has laid claim to how it plays a role in the decisions that I make every day. My priorities on what it means to be happy, and how I can get to that level of happiness have evolved and is now paramount in my life. It also continues to be an ongoing exploration of seeing that being happy is much easier than we think it is.
I’m not talking about gaining material goods to see if I can make myself happy, it’s more of a choice of how I interact with everyone around me. These personal interactions are what I consider to be true measures of happiness.
Being happy is a choice made by every person every day and should last until our last day.
The Zen Hiker 