Fr.

Ignatius Huang – On Discernment

12 – 14th June 2009

Reliving a Significant Experience

• In God's presence, remember a time
perhaps, life-changing event. Possibly a
comes to your mind, a serious crisis, or
change in your outlook. Sit with God and
important experience.
that you underwent a very significant and
conversion experience, sudden or gradual,
something that brought about a major
let God help you bring to mind this

• Remember the inner details and outer circumstances of the experience. Savor
its richness, and relive it in your memory, feeling, imagination, heart, and mind.
Notice God's presence.

1. What were the circumstances of the experience, i.e. were you by yourself, on
a retreat, at a liturgy, in a group, or having a serious crisis in your life?

2. What was God's presence like in the experience?

3. What were some of your feelings, thoughts, and desires?

4. What differences did you notice within yourself as a result of this

experience? Did any change take place in your life?

Do you notice anything new happening in you now as you remember and relive the
experience?

Be attentive to God's presence. Share with God any feelings that arise, and listen
to God's response.

Exploring an Experience with Various Interior Reactions

Remember an event or a period of time when you experienced various interior

reactions to something, when you felt consoled, cheerful, and satisfied, and these
reactions lasted. At other times, you felt dry and dissatisfied.

1. What were the circumstances?

2. Did you notice God's presence at any point?

3. What were some of your thoughts and feelings during the consoling part of
the experience?

4. What were some of your thoughts and feelings during the dissatisfying art of
the experience? Were you struggling with unfreedom?

5. Was your imagination involved?

6. How did the desolation get resolved?

7. Did any change take place in you as a result of this experience of

consolation and desolation?

8. What did you learn about yourself and God?

As you pray, be attentive to God's presence. Share with God your feelings. Listen
to God's response.

Asking God to Transform Your Blind Spots

• St Ignatius often referred to his inner blindness, meaning the things he was
missing that God was trying to reveal to him, things he was not seeing with his
inner eyes, and interior movements of which he was not yet aware.

• In God's presence, sit with own spiritual, inner vision as well as your
inner blindness.

1. What seems stronger - your ability to see or not to see through your
spiritual eyes?

2. Ask God to show you any blind spots about yourself, about God, about your
relationship with God, about your life, about any important situations and
relationships in which you are involved.

3. Ask God to help you to see what God wants you to see about God, yourself,
another person, or a specific situation.

4. Ask God to give you the gift of spiritual insight in order to be able to
discern and to follow God's ways in all circumstances of your life.

Getting Lost Along the Way

In God's presence, remember a time or a decision you made in which you thought you
were going in the right direction, but later discovered that you got lost along
the way. You learned that what seemed to be God's will and what seemed to be
congruent with your deepest self was not right after all.

1. What were the circumstances?

2. What were your thoughts and feelings? What were the subtle deceptions that
were going on?

3. What was God's presence like at the beginning, middle, and end of the
decision?

4. How long were you lost? Disoriented?

5. What helped you to realize that you were moving in the wrong direction?

6. What did you learn from this experience about yourself? About God? About
false consolation?

As you ponder this experience, be attentive to God's presence with you now. Share
with God any feelings that arise, and listen to God's response. Ask God what you
need in order to avoid this type of false consolation again.

Exploring an Intense Desolating Experience

In God's presence, remember a time you had a severe desolating experience.

1. What were the circumstances?

2. What did you notice about God's absence or presence before, during, and
after the desolation?

3. What were some of your thoughts and feelings during the experience? After
the experience?

4. Were you struggling with an area of unfreedom or sinfulness?

5. How was this desolating experience resolved?

6. Did any change take place as a result of this experience?

What did you learn about yourself? About God?

As you pray with this experience, be attentive to God's presence. Share with God
your feelings, and listen to God's response.

Reliving a Consolation without Previous Cause

In God's presence, remember a time that you experienced an unexpected, out of the
ordinary, and very powerful experience of God's love that made a deep and lasting
impression on you.

Savor the richness of the experience, and relive it in your memory, feeling,
imagination, heart, and mind.

1. What were the circumstances of the experience? What was God's presence like
in the experience?

2. What are some of your feelings, thoughts, and desires?

3. What difference did you notice within yourself as a result of this

experience?

As you relive this experience, be attentive to God's presence with you now. Share
with God any feelings that arise, and listen to
God's response
Noticing Your Consolation in “Ordinary Time”

In God's presence, notice the ways you have been experiencing consolation in
"ordinary time" (choose a time period ~ a week, a month, a few months).

1. In your daily life, how do you usually experience God's presence?

2. What are your usual affective reactions? Joy? Peace? Love? Hope? Tears? A
sense of well-being?

Savor the richness of your consolations. Express gratitude for God's presence with
you. Ask God for the gifts of fidelity and
strength in times of desolation.

A Vivid Sense of Jesus’ Presence

• A holy woman once prayed for St Ignatius: "May our Lord Jesus Christ appear
to you one day!"
• Remember a time when you saw Jesus with the inner eyes of your soul, when
you experienced his presence in a vivid way, when he came alive for you in your
prayer. Remember the inner details and outer circumstances of the experience.
Savor the richness of the experience and relive it in your memory, feeling,
imagination, heart, and mind. Be attentive to God's presence.

1. What were the circumstances of the experience, i.e. were you by yourself, on
a retreat, at a liturgy?

2. How would you describe Jesus' presence in the experience?

3. What were some of your feelings, thoughts, and desires?

4. What differences did you notice within yourself as a result of this

experience?

5. Do you notice anything new happening in you now as you remember and relive
the experience?

As you relive it, be attentive to God's presence. Share with God any feelings that
arise, and listen to God's response. Ask God for the grace to notice Jesus more
readily within yourself and within your life.

Getting in Touch with Your Desire for God

In God's presence, let yourself be in touch with your desire with God.

1. What is that desire like? How strong is your desire for God?

2. "As the deer longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, 0 God!"
(Ps42:2). How would you image your desire for God? How would you articulate it if
someone asked you about it?

3. Has your desire for God changed through the years? How has it changed?

Express to God your desire. Ask God to increase your desire if it needs to be
strengthened.

Becoming Aware of God’s Desire for You

1. Spend time looking at God- Who is God for you now? How is God present with
you at this moment?

2. What is God's desire for you like? Listen to God expresses this desire.

3. Jesus said: "How often I have yearned to gather you, as a mother bird
gathers her young under her wings ..." (Mt 23:37). How would you image or express
God's desire for you as you are sensing it now?

4. Let yourself feel God's desire for you. How do you feel as you get in touch
with this desire? Joyful? Grateful? Fearful?

Share this feeling with God. Ask for a greater awareness of and openness to God's
desire for you.
Criteria to discern whether or not a spiritual prompting is authentic

• Is it faithful to scripture and to the larger tradition?

• Does it manifest the fruit of the Spirit within the individual and
community?
• Is it characterized by a genuine sense of inner authority and peace?
• Does it promote reconciliation rather than divisiveness?
• Does it enhance rather than diminish life?
• Has the discernment process been engaged with integrity?

Questions and activities

• Recall a decision that in retrospect was a wise one. How did you make it?
What factors did you weight? With whom did you consult? What would have been the
consequences if you had made a different decision?

• Recall a decision that you have made that you now regret. What was the
process by which you make that decision? Have you since discovered clues about how
you could have made that decision differently?

• Make a short list of persons you might call when you are faced with a tough
decision. What do you look for from these persons? How do they help you?

As a group, role-play the process of communal discernment as if you were a

decision-making body of your

BASIC ELEMENTS IN DISCERNMENT

Affectivity & Reasoning

• Within the framework of prayer as a continuing dialogue with God & a living
relationship with him, discernment involves us in a twofold process of reflection:

• Consideration & interpretation of our affective responses to God and to the

world (heart & affectivity)

• Weighing carefully all the reasons or arguments for and against each of the
options (intellect & reasoning)

• Our affectivity and reasoning interpenetrate each other and are in constant
interaction. Our feelings and desires are stirred by what we understanding, know,
reason about, and evaluate. Likewise our reasoning is often affected by our
feelings & desires.

• Thus there is constant mutual interaction, between the affective life and
the life of the mind. But this interaction by no means rules out the possibility
of conflict between these two dimensions. Disharmony between the two is often a
necessary stage in fruitful discernment and growth towards wholeness.

• Any balanced process of discernment necessarily takes account both the

rational and the affective aspects of our existence.

• If we suppress our feelings, we risk losing our way in cold rationality, of

living solely "in the head."

• If we exclude the voice of reason, we risk being entirely governed by mood

swings, or waves of desire or emotion
• Good discernment calls us to use our head and trust our feelings.

Affectivity & Discernment

Discerning with the heart requires a process of

noting,
interpreting and
acting on our experiences of consolation & desolation

1. Awareness

• The first step in dealing with our feelings in discernment is to be aware of

and to note what we feel in connection with the circumstances and choices that
concern us. Affective experiences include feelings, moods, attractions, needs and
desires.

• The deeper, more significant feelings provide the energy and drive necessary
for important decisions and effective action. The moods, desires, and other
feelings that are especially important in discernment are those that have to do
with God, God's dealings with the world as a whole, and with us as individuals.

• Discernment offers a fuller understanding of the significance of those

feelings. The first step towards that is to note the feelings that we experience;
to answer the question: what are my feelings with regard to this particular
situation or this major decision that I have to make?

• It is essential to give careful attention to those feelings which are

aroused in us within a setting of prayerful meditation, because that is a context
in which we are likely to be more susceptible than usual to the action of the
Spirit and more able to allow our truest and deepest feelings to come to the
surface.

2. Interpretation

• Discernment distinguishes two different kinds of affective responses to God:

consolation & desolation

• Consolation: positive or creative moods, desires, or feelings which draw us

closer to God,

• Desolation: of negative or destructive nature which draws us away from God

• There are two levels of affective experiences:

• at the immediate level where the feelings can be easily grasped & named

• at the fundamental level of our being where we actually stand in relation

God, the level at which God knows us and is present to us in grace. Discernment
requires us to be in touch with this level & to interpret the movements there.

• Our affective experience, taken in itself, is often ambiguous, thus the need
in discernment to determine whether it is genuine consolation or desolation. To do
this, it is not enough to look at the experience and reflect on it by itself, in
isolation from the rest of life.

• We can grasp the true meaning, in relation to God, of our feelings, moods,
and desires only by looking at them within the setting of the shape and direction
of our lives as a whole. In this context the whole life of a person can be seen as
moving in one of the two fundamental directions, as have one of two basic
orientations:

• Fundamental option against God & for self: their main focus is self-
gratification & comfort

• Basic life orientation is for God

• The key to interpreting affectivity as consolation or desolation is to set

the affective experiences in the context of one's fundamental option for God or
against God:

• Against God: experience of false consolation & life-giving desolation;

• For God: true consolation, though painful at times, & desolation as test or
purification

• Both consolation & desolation are signs of the presence of the Spirit, &
reflecting on both helps us to discover the direction in which the Spirit is
moving, the place in which the reign of God is to be found.

3. Acting on Consolation & Desolation

• Acting on consolation means noting those times and places in which we

experienced consolation and allowing them to determine the shape and direction of
our lives as we move into the future.

• Dealing with desolation is often a more difficult matter than acting on

consolation. The way forward depends to some extent upon the type of desolation in
question, its probable source, and how it seems to operate. The most important
step is to prevent the desolation from ruling our choices and actions.

• Knowing the cause of the desolation helps us to deal with it more

effectively. The causes are many & varied: fatigue, burnout, anxiety, guilt,
illness, lack of inner freedom with regard to a particular situation, neglect of
our relationship with God, poor self-image, distorted images of God. When it is
not possible to know the cause with any certainty, we can only trust that it is
somehow necessary for growth in faith and discipleship (# 322).

• St Ignatius suggests the following ways to deal with desolation:

• Believe & trust that this experience can produce good;

• Recognize that the workings of desolation & temptations are often subtle;
they attack us in our most vulnerable areas (#327) making it difficult for us to
retain objectivity & clarity. Get the help of a spiritual guide to lessen the
chance of being seduced by the desolation.

• Recognize that the experience is temporary, & in God's good time consolation
will return

• Do not make any decision during desolation, but persevere in patience, and
intensify prayer

• Be wary of desolations which are capable of luring us into a downward spiral

of self-deception, false rationalization, self-absorbed feelings of guilt or
remorse. To deal with this, we need first to step back from the experience in
order to be aware of how the desolation is in fact operating (#325-37).
Secondly, cling to God in faith and not allow ourselves to be drawn into the
tangled web of anxiety (#324). Confront the desolation boldly and focus not on the
subtleties or power of the desolation, but with confidence on the love and power
of God (#325).

• These ways of dealing with desolation may not necessarily release us from
it. This is not their main purpose; sometimes desolation has to be endured for as
long as God wishes. Dealing with it in this way, however, does serve to draw its
sting and lessen or prevent its destructive effects.

• Experiences of desolation and consolation tend to fall into patterns which

repeat themselves in the life of particular individuals. Reflecting on past
experiences of consolation and desolation, we can sometime discover a sequence of
events and responses to them that tends to recur. If we can spot the symptoms of a
recurring pattern of desolation at an early stage and thus free us from the worst
effects of the experience.
Reasoning & Discernment

• The intellect is involved in discernment through its role in understanding,

judging & evaluating the options. It comes into play in the process through three
ways:

• Gathering information: choices are valid only when they are well informed.
Discernment flounders if it is based on inadequate information. Accurate
information assures better understanding which is necessary for valid choices

• Reflecting on the affective responses: to enable us to differentiate the

movements of consolation & desolation in order to judge their source &
orientation. This presupposes a certain capacity to step back from one's feelings
in order to interpret and weigh them.

• Stating, discussing and evaluating the pros and cons of the choices. This
involves these steps:

• Take one of the possible options;

• Consider carefully all the reasons and arguments in favour of this option;

• Consider carefully all the reasons and arguments against this option;

• Repeat this process with each of the options until one reaches a choice
based on these considerations.

• The important question is the weight or value of the reasons or arguments on

each side in relation to each other.

This weighing works in conjunction with the process of sifting experiences of

consolation and desolation.

Discernment allows us to choose and put into effect that option, which we believe
represents, in the circumstances within which we are making a choice, the greater
good. To make such a judgment, we need a norm of goodness upon which it can be
based.

• The Christian norm is to choose that option which in the circumstances we

believe will give "greater praise and glory" to God. This norm is based on the
love which we find embodied in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of
Jesus, i.e. to love as Jesus loved.

• The acid test for Christian discernment is agape love & justice

• Christian love is not limited to the area of interpersonal relationships,

but must be utilized to create a world in which social and cultural structures and
institutions also embody and foster the love and justice which Jesus preached and
practiced.
BEGINNING THE DISCERNMENT PROCESS

1. Stirring Within

God's initiative & invitation through inner stirring prompted by external or

personal circumstances,

one's desires & vision

Sensitivity to the prompting within --à courage & will to respond

2. Clarifying Object of Choice

Sufficient time frame for listening to the question within

Resist internal & external pressure to come to immediate answer or decision

Process of eliminating possible choices until core question remains

Initial articulation of question, even if vague & formless

Seek help of spiritual guide

3. Cornerstones of Faith & Values

Hierarchy of values shaped by faith

Faith values reflected in 4 criteria: to be incarnate, giving & given up,

universal & in communion.

The 4 criteria ensure choice leads to Life in the Spirit & Agape

4. Tools :

Head : use of intellectual reasoning to weigh question realistically & to check

impulsive decision-making

Heart : Sensitivity to inner movements. Awareness of the 3 layers of emotions:

superficial & outer layer: quick & changeable, & may even hide what is deepest

median stratum: not as numerous & changing as surface layer, but these 'gut
feelings' last fairly long, revealing something profound about self & pointing to
presence of core of our being

core of being: deepest level of affectivity which is rarely felt, but is

intuitively sensed; resonates God's will for us & when experienced, leaves high
degree of certainty
Sifting through the inner movements to determine their source and orientation

5. Prayer :

Context of discernment
DISCERNMENT WITH THE INTELLECT
• Do I feel called to religious Life? Am I called to serve the Church in some
other way? What does God want from me in my life? These are difficult questions to
answer. The discernment process is often a long and difficult road to travel. A
candidate discerning a vocation to religious Life can have many questions and few
answers. At times, because of all the options, a candidate may feel it is too
difficult to make a decision. Therefore, they make no decision.

• It is helpful to "process" all the options one may face. We often find it
difficult to make a decision because we are too caught up with how we "feel" about
our options. One may appear easier. Another may not be considered because it never
crossed our mind!

• It is often the case that we are more controlled by our feelings than we are
by our cognitive thoughts. In other words, our heart gets in the way of our mind.
In order to make good decisions, we must involve both our heart and mind.

Basic Process of Discernment

I would like to share a process that has been helpful for me when I had to make
difficult decisions in my life. It is a process that can help us to "think" about
our options in an objective way. I believe it is a process that can bring some
clarity for a person who may be discerning a Religious Vocation.

• The first step is to get a piece of paper and write down the decision that
has to be made. If we are discerning a call to Religious Life, the decision is to
pursue this call. Second, write down the decision not to be made - i.e. not
pursuing Religious Life. Then, make two columns for each decision. Write down the
pros and cons for both decisions. Write down as many that you can think that are
honest and true.

• After this is done, evaluate the weight of those decisions you have written
down. Are both decisions about choosing something good? Does one weigh more
heavily than the other? Are there more reasons to make one decision than the
other?

• Next, choose one of the decisions! This is perhaps the most difficult part
since we often feel we may be leaving something out. Yet, if we fail to make
decisions in our lives, we fail to grow. Once the decision is made, live with it
for a week. It is not good to act or make decisions quickly. Talk about your
decision with friends. Listen to your feelings, thoughts and dreams.

• Then, "wear" the other decision for a week! What are your feelings now? How
has your prayer been during the week? Do you feel comfortable with this decision?

• Always remember that vocations come from God. Therefore it is important

throughout the process to pray. Reading scripture, spending time listening to God
in prayer are extremely important.

• Finally, make a choice and live with it. Follow up on your decision by
taking whatever steps are necessary to pursue it.

• Making decisions are not easy, but when they are made the right way, they
can be very liberating. As you go through the discernment process in regards to
Religious Life, know that God is with you! Pray for God's guidance and the wisdom
that is needed to make the right decision.
Summary of Discernment Process

1. Write down the decision to be made.

2. Write down the decision not to be made.

3. Make two columns for each decision. Write down the pros and cons for both
decisions.

4. Evaluate the weight of those things you have written down. Are both
decisions about choosing something good? Does one weigh more heavily than the
other?

5. Choose one of the decisions. Live with it for a week. Talk to friends about
it, listen to your own feelings, thoughts, dreams, sleeping and walking patterns.

6. Wear the other decisions for a week. What are your feelings now? How has
your prayer been during this week?

7. Make a choice. Live with the decision.

Elements of Discernment

Prayer: One needs to have a life of prayer and not just prayer at crisis times.

Evidence: You need to gather the facts about your abilities and limitations -
spiritual, mental, physical. Are you able to live out the call to a life in an
apostolic community?

Guide: Choose a mature Christian who can help you be objective in your discernment
— not a friend or a relative.

Openness: Look at your motivation. What are your ideals, false gods? Why do you
want to be a religious? Why not?

Time: Be patient with yourself and with God. Discernment needs time so you cap
determine if the movements are from God or solely from yourself.

Peace: Look to see if you have a calm or sense of rightness about your decision.
If there is a lot of anxiety you probably should pray some wore. If the anxiety
persists, you probably are not being called. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Pay attention
to your feelings.

Decision: Make the most loving choice. Choose what you sense is God’s will as you
understand it. Remember that God does not want anyone to be unhappy. Usually our
true deep desires grip God’s desire for us.

Confirmation: After making your initial decision give yourself more time to pray
and to wait awhile to see if your inner peace remains. There should be a
continuation of inner tranquility and satisfaction that you made the best
decision.

CAUTION: Sometimes we can panic after making a major decision. That is normal. The
key is to see if the panic persists. If so, you better look at it again.

Other Comments About Discernment:

1. No one is one hundred percent sure of any decision. Strive to choose the
most loving thing. You cannot expect infallibility. Try to follow your heart the
best you can.

2. Discernment takes a lot of work. Try to get all the pertinent facts
available.

3. Decisions we not necessarily the most difficult choices. God's will is not
always hard.

4. The core of discernment is prayer, evidence and peace.

For Reflection And Discussion

1. How do spiritual movements differ from other affective movements that we

experience?

2. What does 'listening* in prayer mean?

3. What do we mean when we say that God communicates with us personally yet
indirectly?

4. Why should spiritual awareness presume psychological or physical awareness?

5. Why is reflection on experience necessary for spiritual growth?

6. How would you help another person to pray in order that he/she would be open
to and allow spiritual movements to happen?

Prayer Exercises To Help Growth In Awareness Of Spiritual Movements

Prayer Exercise 1

For 5 or 10 minutes each day, be silent and try to get in touch with the different
feelings that you have had through this day.

i) Place yourself in the presence of God.

Simply stop and let come to the surface of your consciousness all the feelings of
the past day. Some of these words may help you to identify these feelings:

joyful, in turmoil, being accepted, peaceful, bitterness, resentment, defensive,

angry, alienated, loving, hostile, longing, desire, distant, confident, fury,
indignation, bugged, bold, relieved, fearful, loved, hyper, tense, confused.

Prayer Exercise 2

Scripture texts for prayer that deal with listening to God's communication:

Luke 11:1-13; John 14:16-28; Romans 5:1-11;

Romans 8:26-34; Ephesians 3:14-21; Psalm 95;

Isaiah 6:1-9; Luke 18:9-14; Acts 9:1-20

Deuteronomy 30:14; Romans 10:8; I Kings 19:11-13

Prayer Exercise 3

The purposes of this exercise are to become more attuned to the different levels
of movements within yourself and to grow in the skill of distinguishing
^spiritual* movements from the physical and psychological dimensions of your
being. Each day spend about ten minutes on the following:

1) Place yourself in the presence of God and pray for enlightenment...

Relax.... Let your real feelings surface and name them. Choose one or two of
these.

2) Ask God to help you uncover what is really going on beneath your
experiences. Talk with God about them.

3) Is the source biological?

4) Is the source psychological? If so, precisely what is it? Is it a reliving

of the past, or is it a defense response, or is it something else?

5) Or is the experience simply a genuine, human reaction to a particular

situation?

6) Talk with Jesus about these experiences. You may want to thank him for them.
Of course, if they were problematic, you may want to ask him for growth in freedom
or some enlightenment. You might discuss with him how you might handle them in the
future. Perhaps you could imagine yourself in a similar situation in the future
and ask Jesus how you might handle it. Then let go. This process of recognition
with Jesus is itself a freeing process and leads to recognition of what is
happening when it is happening.

7) Ask yourself if you have responded freely to situations of the past period
or if your behavior has been dominated by psychological unfreedoms.

8) What experiences have you had to-day that you would call 'spiritual'? In
other words, where have you met the God to-day:

9) presence? absence? peace? struggle? awareness? insight?

10) Toward the end of the week, spend some time reflecting on the movements of
the whole week. Make a graph using three colors — one for psychological
experiences, one for physical experiences, and one for spiritual experiences.
Hopefully such a graph will help you notice how all these different levels co-
exist and intertwine at the same time.
The Present by Spencer Johnson

This book explains very common yet powerful concept in very simple manner. The
crux of the book is how to live in the present while learning from the past and
planing for the future to achieve happiness in work and personal life. It explains
The Present (gift) is not the past, and not the future, it is the present moment,
it is ‘now’. It means to focus and pay attention to what is happening right now.
Usually when you are in the office, you think where else you might enjoy working
more or what you will do when you go home. When you are in the meeting or chatting
with friends, your mind wonders somewhere else. So this concept explains a very
powerful strategy to focus on the present moment and concentrate on the activity
which is happening in that moment.

Now focusing on the present doesn’t mean that you should forget the past.
Everybody does some mistakes in the past but you shouldn’t keep worrying about it.
You might keep thinking about those past mistakes in the present and may spoil the
present. It is hard to let go of the past if you have not learned from the past.
As soon as you learn from your mistakes, you can easily let that go away and move
on in the present. Once you learn from your past, it is easy to enjoy in the
present, which eventually enhance your performance in the present. When you are
feeling unhappy in the present, then it is time to learn from the past or plan the
future.

To achieve happiness in work and personal life, live in the present, learn from
the past and plan for the future.

The common behavior of people is to live in the future and get anxious about the
events in the future. This book explains that we should plan for the future but we
should not live in the future. Only way we can make our future better than our
present is to plan for the future. Planning for our future reduces the
uncertainty, anxiety and fear about future events as you are actively working on
your plan to achieve your goals in the future. So we should visualize a wonderful
future, create a realistic plan to help it happen and then take actions in the
present to achieve the desired success.

It also explains living in the present, learning from the past and planing for the
future is not all there is. It is only when you live with a purpose and respond to
what’s important about the present, past and future, has all the meaning. Living
with purpose means not only knowing what to do, but also understanding why to do.
It means rising each day and seeing what meaning it will hold for you and for
others as a result of your actions.

The Present is the best gift you can give yourself.