The underlying belief which makes the postponement of joy possible is this: sacrifice is necessary now because lasting happiness will be yours someday. This, the world celebrates as hope. Let us look at hope.

If you are already spiritually awakened, then hope is a meaningless concept. What is hope for when salvation has already arrived? But continue to rely upon the ego and all you have is hope because, surely, what you want has yet to arrive.

Most people spend their whole life waiting, seeking, hoping but never reaching the destination of perfect and lasting joy. Years can go by in sacrifice, still decades more, and yet the reward for all this sacrifice never quite arrives. You can place the blame on yourself for not working hard enough, or you can blame the world for its unfairness, but the truth is elsewhere: you are seeking salvation in false idols—where it cannot be found.

Rather than looking honestly at this, you may continue to sacrifice feeling good now for a fantasy of the future. You may avoid love now for the purpose of finding true love. You may ignore spiritual teachings, meditation, and a healthy way of living because you are too busy becoming sick at the altar of the future. You may live dishonestly to preserve a relationship that is making you both miserable. You may read the news each day waiting for the world to be declared safe. You may put off doing what inspires you because it is impractical at the moment. Still you keep hoping that someday, somehow, all your dreams will come true and your life will be wonderful. How so?

A better future doesn’t exist, but a better present does. Patience isn’t a state of waiting; rather a superior way of being and doing. Love isn’t something you are working toward; it is there each moment you decide for it. Rest isn’t found in sleeping; rather, from waking. Joy is detached from external circumstance and is found in freedom.

What you have been hoping for can only be yours now and requires only a real decision for it.