You want to be present but your mind is always elsewhere

This longing to be present is itself the beginning of presence. The mind wanders to past and future, missing the only real time — it runs ahead and back, so the present, the only time that exists, slips by unattended, and the constant stimulation has worsened this by giving the restless mind endless elsewhere to flee to; your life is happening in a now you are almost never in. The senses are the doorway back to now — you cannot think your way present, for thought lives in past and future, so return through the senses, which exist only in the present: the feet, the sounds, the breath, the sight before you, always available. And presence is a gentle returning, practiced, not a state seized — the mind will always wander, and presence is not its absence but the gentle return from it, again and again without reproach, strengthening like a path worn by walking. Expect to wander a thousand times; return a thousand and one. Where do you most want to be present but find yourself gone?