All we crave is the moment in which we can forget ourselves. We forget ourselves as we make googoo faces at a beautiful baby. We forget ourselves when the moment demands spontaneous action. When we don't act spontaneously in the moment, we are acting from thoughts. Thoughts tell us what we should do or must do in a given situation. Thought tells us how to can in order to get the result we want. For this, thought consults its memory bank of experience. It recognizes the situation according to past situations and then determines how to manipulate to get its own way. Thought is always looking for a way to be seen as smart, better than, and right. Thought is always looking for ways to win. The way that thought operates separates us from each other. We are always trying to get something from another. It could be praise, money, sex, or power. It doesn't matter. There is always an expectation in thought. If things don't go our way then we are sad. If things go our way then we are happy. This happiness is only temporary so we are forever seeking to get our way. Anyone that enables us to get our way is seen as good. Anyone that orevents our way is seen as bad. So we constantly file away in our memory banks of thoughts, experiences that are good and bad. We then hope to avoid the bad and constantly experience the good. As such, life becomes and endless struggle to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Everything we come in contact with is judged based on its value to give us pleasure or pain. If its pleasurable we move towards it. If its painful we move away. This mechanism keeps us safe when it comes to actual physical danger. If we see a poisonous spider it is intelligent to move away. But what about when it comes to the merely psychological. Where is the danger but in the thoughts of the mind? Where did those thoughts come from? They are from the past. And if we are acting in the present based on what our thoughts are saying, isn't that just reacting to the past? We all walk around hoping for a better future by reacting to our past memories and experiences. Hoping for more pleasure in the future. By the time that imagined future comes into being, we are already busy hoping for another future. There is no end to the pleasures the mind can seek. Everything we do is to escape the present. The present moment is all we have but we are always escaping. We are escaping because we are too afraid of what we might see of ourselves in the moment. If we look at ourselves in the moment we will discover we aren't being true to who we are. What we are doing and being is who we think we should be. We are trying to live up to ideals given to us by our society, family, etc. As a result we need to escape. Society molds us to be a certain way and we feel guilt and shame that we aren't the way we should be. So society cleverly provides us with escapes like junk food, TV, and drinks to escape the pain, to forget ourselves. We feel better when we forget ourselves while we are engrained by TV or a bucket of ice cream. But, soon then show is over and the bucket is empty. So how do we forget ourselves without escaping the moment? Only by being so completely in the moment that there is no thought about yesterday or tomorrow. The present moment is the only moment there can be happiness. When we are truly happy, we are unaware that we are happy. We forget ourselves in the moment and are not escaping from it. We want to escape because we have gone so far away from who we are. Instead of escaping, use every moment to look at who you are. Watch intensely. Learn who you are from moment to moment. Look inside. We are looking outside for escapes. We are hoping for a better tomorrow. Look at yourself. Only you can change yourself by watching yourself from moment to moment.