“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

–Buddha

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

–Lao Tzu

“The present alone is what always exists, and it stands alone; everything else is only thought of.”

–Arthur Schopenhauer

In a philosophical sense, presentism is the doctrine that only things in the present—the now—truly exist. Presentism beckons us to live in the moment. It is intuitively appealing as we only exist in the present, and our experience of the world is bound by each moment in time. We can accept that the past did truly exist, but it is now the stuff of memory, not current reality.

So the past is gone and the future is yet to be written. Yet, I've seen in my clinical practice how people can become mired in the past or preoccupied with the future or find themselves alternating between past and future. They tend to lose sight of what's directly in front of them, the ever-changing present.

People with depression often carry the........

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