Give a chance to your actual present, the key to eliminate frustration and bitterness?


Most of personal development books say we need to be focus on the present to be happy and successful.
Most buddhist books say the the same thing (for more about the links between personal development and buddhism...)

I've discovered another meaning to this expression very recently (home made discovery, I just found it while writing my personal diary :p). I wanted to share it with you.

The 2 common meanings of "live the present":

1 - Live the present usually means don't worry for the future, for a future that will not happen because things rarely happen the way we think they will happen!

2 - Live the present usually means don't regret! Don't regret a past situation, mistakes you made, choices you made.



And the third one:
Live the present means you don't compare your present with virtual presents you build.

Explanation: 
When you're proposed a job abroad very well paid. You build a virtual present of you, working abroad and rich.
When you change job, you build a virtual present of what would have been your life in your previous job, a cool life your your lovely colleagues.
When you ask for a promotion, you build a virtual present of yourself with this promotion, buying a flat, a german car...
When you like a lot a woman (or a man), you build a virtual present of you with her (or him), living an amazing life or travel, parties and... well and a lot of other things.
When you quit your girlfriend (or boyfriend), you imagine a virtual present of you and her still together with great moments between 2 persons knowing each other and loving each other so much...
When you do your best to be part of a group of people, you build a virtual present of you having fun with them, having more fun than your current life...
When you do your best to get other people's recognition, you build a virtual present of you having people recognition, they all say you're good and it's SO good, you're even more successful etc.

Don't you build these presents? Am I the only one who do that? :) I don't think so when I talk with friends and colleagues. 
Most of people spend a lot of time comparing current situations with virtual presents, most of the time, a LOT better than the real present they actually live.
And as you can guess, it makes people frustrated by their current present.

These virtual presents are dreams, phantasms, visions, chimerical things, wonderlands, etc. BUT they are wrong. They do not correspond to any reality.
These virtual presents have nothing to do with something real. 
They would never exist the way you think them! Never ever.
If they one day they become reality, they would be different!
Aladin's genius who transforms your virtual present phantasms into a reality is a fairy tale.



So stop comparing. 
Give a chance to your present, the one you're actually living. 
Live it.
Don't compare it.
Improve it.
Enrich it.
But don't compare it.
Don't create frustration, sadness, bitterness.

Life is too short to create frustration comparing your reality with a fairy tales you build!

By the way, I think it's my personal development discovery of the year.
Hope that you like it too :)