MANAWA: Now is the Moment of Power

MANAWA: Now is the Moment of Power

The Time-Traveler in the Mirror

You think time travel is science fiction? Bullshit. You do it every single day. You spend your morning zipping back to a conversation from last week, replaying every stupid thing you said. Then you rocket into the future, stressing about a meeting that hasn’t happened yet, imagining every possible way it could go wrong. You’re a goddamn temporal tourist, and you’re spending all your energy visiting places that don’t exist.

The past? It’s a ghost. A memory trace etched in your neural pathways, a story you tell yourself. The future? It’s a fantasy, a daydream. The only thing that’s real, the only place you have any power, is right here, right now. This very second. This is the fourth principle of Huna wisdom: MANAWA, or “Now is the Moment of Power.”

It sounds simple, almost like a cheesy motivational poster. But it’s one of the most profound and difficult truths to live by. And it’s not just some woo-woo spiritual concept; it’s baked into the fundamental laws of the universe.

The Problem: Your Temporal Addiction

Most people live their lives like a movie they’ve already seen a hundred times. They’re stuck in a feedback loop of regret and anxiety. You beat yourself up for the business that failed, the relationship that ended, the opportunity you missed. You’re chained to a corpse, dragging it through your present and poisoning your future.

Or you’re a future-tripper. You’re so obsessed with planning the “perfect” life, avoiding every potential pitfall, and scripting every conversation that you forget to actually live. You’re a Backward-Looking Person (BLP), constantly referencing a past that’s gone, or a future that’s pure fiction. You’re trying to navigate a flowing river by staring at a static map.

This isn’t just making you miserable; it’s making you ineffective. You can’t create, you can’t adapt, you can’t evolve if your attention is splintered across a timeline that only exists in your head. Your power isn’t in the past or the future. It’s now. The ability to act, to choose, to change—it only exists in this present moment.

“The past is memory, the future is imagination. Only now is real.”

This is the core of it. Your entire life, everything you’ve ever experienced and everything you ever will, happens in the now. You can’t change the past, and you can’t control the future. All you can do is act in the present.

The Application: How to Stop Being a Temporal Tourist

So how do you pull your head out of the past and future and plant it firmly in the now? It’s a practice, not a switch you flip.

First, you have to become aware of your own temporal bullshit. Catch yourself when you’re replaying old conversations or pre-planning future ones. Just notice it. Don’t judge, just observe. “Ah, there I go again, time-traveling to 2017.” The act of noticing is the first step to reclaiming your attention.

I remember when I was launching my first major company. I was obsessed with the future. I had spreadsheets for my spreadsheets. I had five-year plans, ten-year plans, contingency plans for my contingency plans. I was so focused on the destination that I was completely missing the journey. I was stressed, miserable, and frankly, not very effective. It was only when I hit a major roadblock—a deal fell through, a key employee quit—that I was forced into the now. I had to stop fantasizing about the future and deal with the fire that was burning in front of me. And you know what? That’s when the real creativity happened. That’s when we found a new path, a better path. That’s when the self-organizing principle of the universe kicked in.

Second, you need to ground yourself in your senses. Your senses only operate in the present. You can’t see yesterday. You can’t hear tomorrow. Right now, as you’re reading this, what do you feel? The weight of your body in your chair? The texture of your phone or the click of your mouse? What do you hear? The hum of your computer? The traffic outside? Take 30 seconds and just be a sensory antenna. This is your anchor to the now.

The Takeaway: Your Action Items for the Now

This isn’t just intellectual masturbation. This is a call to action. Here’s your homework.

1. Break It Down. Feeling overwhelmed by a huge project? Stop looking at the mountain. Ask yourself, “What is the smallest possible step I can take in the next five minutes?” Don’t “clean the garage.” Instead, “pick up that one screwdriver.” The momentum from that tiny, present-moment action will carry you to the next step.
2. Practice Sensory Grounding. Set a timer for three times a day. When it goes off, stop what you’re doing and spend one full minute just noticing your sensory input. See, hear, feel, smell. No judgment, no story. Just raw data from the present moment. This trains your brain to come back to the now.
3. Embrace the Arrow. Accept that the past is gone. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. It’s over. It’s a low-entropy state you can never return to. Your energy is needed for the now. Let the ghost go.

Closing

Living in the now isn’t about being passive. It’s the exact opposite. It’s about being so radically present that you can respond to life with your full power. It’s where creativity comes from. It’s where resilience is born. It’s where you stop being a victim of your history and become the creator of your destiny, one present moment at a time.

Stop being a tourist in your own life. Plant your flag in the now. That’s where the power is. That’s where you are.