We recently celebrated the Valentine’s Day, or the so-called love day. Many of us expressed love through every available means. We could have done that on other days also—there were 364 at our disposal. Maybe we didn’t realize then.

That particular day, Feb­ruary 14, gave us an occa­sion, a reason, a reminder, to express love. It’s easy to overlook, but it brought our minds to that particular day. We were reminded to think: ‘Today is a special day’.

Habitually, we are either living in the past or in the future. Past means memo­ries and future means pro­jections based on those memories. Memories are often good or bad, causing us to either cling to or loathe them. And projections too can be good or bad, causing us to either fancy or fear what would come next. In all this, our present moment slips away. Always.

Most of the festivals and ‘days’ around the world bring people’s minds to that day. These days enable people to live in the moment. They lift people’s minds out of mem­ories and projections, and drop them to the ‘here and now’. Without realizing, peo­ple enjoy the ‘here and now’.

Lost in memories and pro­jections, we lose our pre­cious moments. By habit, we cannot enjoy ourselves. We cannot accept ourselves in the moment as we keep remembering the good or nasty things of the past. We are too busy coveting or fear­ing what comes tomorrow or the next year. Slaves to past and future, we have lost our freedom to live ‘here and now’.

What happens if we were in a situation to love? Imag­ine your possible love is next to you. Or a friend, a kid, or your pet, it doesn’t matter. You cannot accept them when you are ruminat­ing the past and worrying about the future. You had a pleasant love affair in the past, or a horrible one. As a slave of habit, you start judging—‘this girl is worse than my ex’ or ‘this guy is no match to my prince’ or ‘this is great, but it will also pass and leave me in pain’. And whoops! Love vanishes. Mind oscillates between the past and future. Your moment of love is lost.

When you live in the pres­ent moment and accept things and people as they are, two things happen: you become peaceful and you better connect with people. It will clear your love-jam. You are then able to love.