I travelled the world for 2 years with my family, to re-prioritise what our life looked like and rediscover what it meant to be truly present with each other.
When we decided we were going to relocate permanently we each wrote a checklist. The things we wanted to be able to see, hear, do , be and feel in our new home, every day.
When we landed in Bali, we checked the list and we just, knew. We were home.
One of the things on our list was the pursuit of presence.
Not creating too many expectations of our future.
Not looking back to our past with any regret.
You see this every day on the faces of the Balinese.
Rituals of gratitude, ceremonies of connection, a way of being, a way with words that tells the listener....I am present.
A Balinese 'tomorrow' can mean next week. A 'yes' today is actually a 'maybe'. All said with a smile that says, it does not truly matter.
Because, in Balinese language, there is no past or future tense.
What happens when a whole civilisation is grammatically incapable of escaping the present moment?
It changes the way you are. What you think. How you act.
The Balinese don't even think time is linear, they live within a cyclical 210 day year.
A 10-day cycle with 10 concurrent weeks running simultaneously. No linear progress. Every day is a quality, not a position.
When time is cyclical not linear, there is no urgency about the future. The harvest will come again. The ceremony will return. The bumps in life are gone tomorrow if they are here today. So be fully here for this one.
It's all just part of a cycle, and one that gives us the opportunity to learn, to grow, be grateful for the lessons.
For the Balinese, they don't know any different. It's always been this way.
And believe me, life looks a lot simpler and happier like this.
But in the West, it's hard to escape the programming. And it can seem like we are always living in the future, striving to get there.
"When I get X I'll feel Y"
But wherever we go, there we are.
In Sovereign Soul we call it Thriving, not Striving. Because a person who Thrives isn't the wealthiest. It's the person who has defined what makes them happy, stops accumulating, and lives it.
It's a change of state, not a change in circumstances.
You might be living a life today you only dreamed of a few years ago.
But today it doesn't feel that way.
The Balinese have a concept called Suka Duka — "The wholeness of joy and sorrow together"
The Balinese don't use this phrase to describe a problem. They use it to name the complete texture of present experience. And to signal that both states are equally valid, equally sacred, and equally to be accepted without resistance.
If we operate in linear time, we are rushing, hoping towards a time when 'things will be better'.
But in doing so we miss out on so much.
Life isn't perfect, so peace is found when we celebrate its imperfection.
Think in cycles, not lines.
Celebrate the duality today.
Because then we'll stop speaking in the past, or the future.
What would change if you removed the grammatical option to escape the present?