My father used to say gatham gathaha. Translated to English, it reads “past is dead”. You can not bring back the old days. You can not relive yesterday (yeah, it is only possible for Bill Murray, in reality there is no “ground hog day”).

You will ruin your today if you keep thinking about what happened yesterday and worrying about what will happen tomorrow. The other day I saw a nice quote on my friend’s facebook. I do not remember it verbatim, but the meaning is etched in my mind

“Today is the same tomorrow that you were worried about yesterday”

All of us waste precious now, worrying about non-dictatable tomorrow and non-repeatable yesterday.

If you believe in fate and destiny, then you know that you can’t define it, you can’t change the course of it. You also know that it is just a manifestation of what you do now. So, there is no point in worrying about tomorrow.

There is no point in worrying about tomorrow even if you do not believe in fate or destiny. Because, according to you, there is nothing called fate or destiny and whatever you achieve is result of your hard work. So, rather than worrying about the result, why not concentrate on the work, i.e., concentrate on now.

Similarly there is no point in brooding over the past. Just learn from the experience of yesterday, use that to guide you today, and proceed.

Live the moment doesn’t mean completely ignore the past and don’t plan for future. It just means don’t be too focused on what could’ve been and what it will be. It means “just be” – no could have, should have, would be; in our elders’ words - we need to live each day as if it is our last day on earth.

I never forget what my driving instructor said - “before you turn see where you are landing”. This is the basic principle for success in life. If you do not know where to go, how will you get there? More importantly, how will you know when you get there? The same principle was repeated by my golf instructor – “have a nice look at the course. See where you want to hit the ball and aim”. He always used to conclude the statement with “once you know where you want the ball to go, concentrate on the ball and the swing, don’t keep looking at the destination. Because, if you keep staring at the destination, you will not be able to see the ball and you are sure to miss hit or totally miss it”.

Once we plan and decide what we want to be, our concentration should be on how to reach there. As a learned man once said, if you keep one eye on the destination you only have one eye to see the path.