All change starts with the present moment.
All intentional change involves a comparison between a current state and a desired state that is imagined to exist in some future now. Unfortunately, the comparison itself can serve as a potent obstacle to change: the gulf between reality and desire can seem insurmountable. What is frequently lost in this comparison is that the space between the present moment and the imagined future now is not an empty void. It is a rich and abundant landscape, infinitely furnished, and filled to the brim with present moments just like this one.
The present moment is all we ever have, and all future present moments are grounded in what happens right now. So, we should act right now, in the present moment, as if the desired state has already been achieved. Some Buddhists believe the very moment that you sit, cross your legs, and assume a meditative posture, you have already at that point achieved enlightenment—the end is not something that can be separated from the beginning. And there is this, one of my favorite quotes from Nietzsche:
“If someone obstinately and for a long time wants to appear something it is in the end hard for him to be anything else. The profession of almost every man [sic], even that of the artist, begins with hypocrisy, with an imitation from without, with a copying of what is most effective. He who is always wearing the mask of a friendly countenance must finally acquire the power over benevolent moods without which the impression of friendliness cannot be obtained—and finally these acquire power over him, he is benevolent.”
