All you ever need to know about motivation and achieving your goals in one sentence.

right now is when you decide your entire life.

right now.

right now is when you choose to live or die. to become something, to take the next step towards your dreams and visions for your future.

or

to sit ideally by while you do nothing, wast time. You think, "oh, I can wast time just for now, and I'll get to the important stuff later."

this is not true.

if you are not aware that everything in your entire life hinges on what you are doing this very moment, then you are so far in the pit of delusion and unreality and denial that you can't even see a single speck of the light of reality.

this is true.

You are living, this very moment, to the best of your ability, or you are dead and failed, breathing the last breath of a wasted, regrettable and quickly forgotten life.

Right now.

What is it that you know you should be doing, or even your best guess at what you should be doing, right now? Are you doing something else, because it's hard to get up from the computer, because you don't want to put in that extra bit of effort? I know that story. I live that story so so often.

but I've just been struck by this thought,

right now

and it, unlike everything else I've ever tried to use to get myself moving, to try (unsuccessfully) to convince myself to do something I "should" or not do something I "shouldn't," has not been successful in convincing me to change my behavior.

shame

anger

fear

nagging

nothing. means nothing. I am a child who knows the parent's threats are empty.

But that thought, no, that burning, searing, simple and obvious truth, scares me, angers me, inspires me like nothing else ever has. Even it is just barely enough of a shield to keep out and fight back the roiling boiling black ocean of indifference and procrastination. And I have to keep muttering it over and over to myself, like an incantation against evil.

"oh, I'll just catch up on some manga and go for a walk later"

"Right now, you make the decision of whether your life is a failure or success."

"oh shit. ok, ok, I'll go out walking now... but I'm tired, and it's already mostly dark-"

"Right now. your life is made by your decision right now."

"oh god. fuck. ok.... ok.... let me just-"

"right now"

"aaaaaaaggghh. ok. I'm going. wait, why was I going instead of reading bleach?"

"right now."

"oh, yeah. yeah. That is a good reason."

This is absolutely true. this is the most true statement you can possibly make in regards to how you create your life. No, you don't appear to have omnipotent control. No you are not guaranteed "success" as you might envision it, every time you act this way. But this is the best you can possibly do. Your life is not created in your imagined future, or the slightly sooner but equally imagined future of you doing what's necessary to create that future. It is created now. Now. Now. This exact second. If there is something, anything, that you want, then right this second is when you make the decision whether you get it or not. There is exactly zero usefulness in worrying about what you did in the past, even one second ago, or worrying about what you will do in the future, even one second in the future. You only have this moment, right now, to decide everything. By deciding the one question that is infront of you right now.

And once you've decided everything in your entire life, it's still the moment when you are deciding everything in your entire life. But you never have to worry about any of those moments. Just one. always and only one. Yes, of course, pursuing your dream, you will, 'fail' a lot, if you are really pursuing it. But you can never actually fail, if you simply remember to learn from everything that happens to you, and everything you do. Then there are no failures. Zero. They are no longer possible, if you apply this understanding. Everything is a lesson; learn from it. You are now invulnerable.

Right now is when your life gets made. Make this your mantra, inscribe in into your door posts and your heart, wrap it around your head and wrists, keep it with you as you walk and as you sit and lie down. Now you have clarity on what is the right thing to do, and most important, the motivation to do it. If (and I understand this may be a big if) you truly understand what this means. If you can see the truth it's pointing at.

Here's a relevant story, not mine by a long shot, third hand, I think. A man was out on his sea kayak, enjoying the waves. He lost track of time, and found himself miles off of shore, with a huge storm kicking up giant waves. "Oh no," he thought, "This is it. I'm going to die. These waves are huge. I'm going to get exhausted fighting them to stay above water, and I'll eventually run out of energy and drown." A giant wave interrupted his thought process, and his mind was totally concentrated on the difficult and vital task of getting over the wave. Once over it, he realized what had happened. He had just been focusing on getting over that one wave, and all thoughts of hopelessness were forgotten in the intense concentration on the present moment. He realized that was the only way he could face this problem. He spent the next several hours, paddling back to shore in the crazy storm, focusing totally on the one wave in front of him, and then the next, and then the next, until he was back safely.

What is your best? Sometimes, your best means going to sleep, resting. Sometimes it means doing something crazy. When you have big dreams, and you start looking at all the ground you have to cover to get there, it starts looking impossible. Like climbing a huge cliff face and looking down, you get scared. But when it's just one little decision, right now, it's doable. And as you go along, you will learn when you need to rest, when you need to act, and what it is you need to do. You learn best by doing, and you learn most by "failing." So don't be afraid to fail, look forward to it. If you are pushing yourself enough to be continually failing, and continually learning from your failures, you will be growing at a blinding pace towards your dreams. If you haven't failed, really failed, recently, you're probably stagnant. Coasting, at best. Reminder: if you don't learn from a "failure" it really is a failure. You can't skip that part. However, if you do learn from it, its more of a success than what you would traditionally call a "success."

Also note, I'm not at all suggesting you try to fail. You need to try your best to succeed. That way when you fail, you can learn why, and eventually you won't fail in that way, and eventually, you will succeed, yes, even in the way you envisioned.

Also, I'm not suggesting you don't plan. You do your best, in this moment. If your dream is best served by planning out the steps you will need to take to achieve it, then do that. You are still only doing the steps one step at a time, starting with the "make a plan" step. I don't talk new age mumbo jumbo, for the most part. I just talk what I see. This is not stuff you'll never see or understand or be able to prove, like must psychic stuff. This is easily reasoned for ones self, and testable by all people, everywhere. If it doesn't work your either doing it wrong or I'm not describing it well enough.

Yet another warning: realize that your dreams and visions will change over time. Nobody keeps the exact same vision for there whole lives. Often they change completely, but even the ones that keep the same theme change monthly, weekly, daily. This is because we are continuing to grow, to experience, to change. It is to be expected. Don't fight it, it's a good thing. As we experience more, we realize there is more, and so the dream grows more grand with the growth towards it.

I don't think it matters what your dream is specificaly, how big or crazy, this will work for it if followed through. I say this taking into account my understanding of immortality, that body's cease functioning but who we are never ends. If you don't believe that, you'll probably set your sights a little lower, and there's no grantee that you will succeed in this lifetime. Still, the principal is solid. It's your best bet. There are plenty of specifics that you can try on for size, from various self help/motivational books, etc. etc. But those are all things to try, and fail with, and see what works. That's details. That's information I already had, but couldn't use, because I didn't have this information.

This point is the car key that actually brings the whole apparatus to life, and gives it the ability to actually move.

Another quasi-quote, this time from the Bhagavad-Gita: "Live not for the fruits of action, nor attach yourself to inaction. Focus on action alone. Pitiful are those who live for the fruits of action."

Think about what you want, plan for it, dream about it, but when it is go time (and most of the time is go time) focus on the action. What are you doing, right now?

Right now is when you decide your entire life.