“Never hurry.”

My friend once said this to me and it stuck with me. I came to appreciate it more as I read about mindfulness and the art of living.

After going through the soul-crushingly competitive Chinese education system, and the FOMA-infused American college experience, I am programmed to be extremely aware and cautious of how I spend time. I am conditioned to strive for productivity, like most Americans.

The good thing is it’s not too late to change, to learn to live in the eternal now. The fact that I have no idea where I will be in a couple of months is constantly instructing me to live in the present moment.

The sun is shining through my blinds, onto my fingers and the black keyboard of my beautiful mac. It’s a nice Sunday afternoon and I am about to go to dinner and a mountain film festival with a lovely friend tonight. Why let the uncertainty of the future ruin the certainty of now?

In each breath, there is so much space, so much for what life has to offer. Inhale and exhale. Here’s the eternal now.