I was listening to Echart Tolle this morning, driving in to work. In talking about being in the present moment, he said that hope can quickly turn to fear: “Everything will turn out well” morphs into “but what if it doesn’t?” Being an optimist, this gave me pause. I do tend to expect everything to turn out well, and am always full of hope. I’ve always thought of hope as a good thing, something that keeps us going when things around us are dark. But, hope does pull us out of the present moment to think (obsess) about the future. And Tolle is right, at least in my case.

A friend asked me today: what is consciousness? She needed a definition for a class. Be careful what you ask a coach. Here was my reply:

Consciousness: Transcending the ego to live fully in the present moment.
What does this mean? Here’s my humble opinion:

As I walked through a forest trail today, I got the feeling that the only reality was right in front of me. Behind me was a mist that dissipated as I walked. The steps that I took, the past, didn’t exist. Only what I could see around me was reality. I stopped and looked behind me. Everything was there, just as I had passed it. But then it occurred to me that as I stood there looking at it, it had become my present, my reality. I could keep turning around looking for the mist, but I would never see it. It doesn’t exist!