The Power of Now Book Summary

 The power of now by Eckhart Tolle shows you that every minute you spend worrying about the future or regretting the past is a minute lost because really all you have to live in is the present the now and gives you actionable strategies to start living every minute as it occurs plagued by depressing late-night thoughts toll started questioning what it is that made his life so unbearable and found the answer in his eye the self-generated from the power of his thoughts in his mind the next morning he woke up I felt very much at peace because he'd somehow managed to lose his warrior self and live entirely in the now the present moment after spending several years doing nothing but enjoying his newfound peace eventually people started asking him questions so he answered Eckhart started teaching and publishing the power of now in 1997 which eventually went on to become a new york times bestseller in 2000 after Oprah Winfrey fell in love with it and recommended it. 

Here are three lessons from it to help you worry and regret less ready for a trip to this beautiful place called the present let's go if I ask 100 people to name the two most common bad feelings they can think of 99 of them would probably respond with regret and anxiety wouldn't you the reason we regret and worry about a lot of things lies in the way our minds work the constant stream of consciousness and thoughts in our mind which plays 24/7 in our heads is mostly preoccupied with two things the past and the future when you wake up 10 minutes too late in the morning what's the first thing you think oh no I haven't slipped I wish I hadn't hit the snooze button closely followed by oh no now I'll be late for work I'm sure my boss will yell at me and voila you've ruined at least the first half of your day toll says that the most important time is the one we think about the least the present the reason only the present matters is that everything happens here everything you feel and sends takes place in the present when you think about it the past is nothing more than all present moments that have gone by and the future is just a collection of present moments waiting to arrive therefore living in any other moment than the present is useless if your task is to hand in a research paper in 14 days neither regretting all this time you procrastinated nor worrying about the big workload that's to come will actually help get you there but if you just start solving the first tiny problem and come up with an outline it's all downhill from there I'm a big fan of stoicism part of their philosophy includes the idea that the only pain you really suffer is the one you create yourself toll would surely agree since he argues that pain is nothing more than the result of you resisting all the things you cannot change we think a lot about the future and the past but can only live in the present and have therefore no means to change many things from the other two that we're unhappy about then we fill the gap between these by developing a resistance to these things which is what we experience as pain whether psychological or physical when you're angry that anger usually makes you think and act less rationally which more often than not results in a worse situation and thus more pain but it's really all in your head.

How then can you get rid of pain toll recommends two things one constantly ask yourself what will my next thought be two stop judging your thoughts and urges the first strategy is based on an effect from physics called the quantum zeno effect it says that you can freeze any system in its current state by constantly observing it asking yourself this question over and over will usually delay your actual next thought thus giving you enough time to realize how much time you actually spend in autopilot mode this way you can start interrupting your mind and thus separating from it the second method is meant to help you listen to your body and learn to accept the constant nagging thoughts in your head about what you should be doing or not doing the next time you do wake up late for work just listen to that voice that says you should have done better but don't act on it notice it see it accept that it's there but don't give in to its advice these two tools will help you separate your body from your always-on thought-driven mind after which you'll be in less pain because you resist the things you can't change a lot less enlightened spiritual teacher or insane quack opinions on the power of now couldn't fall further apart.