09/02/2026
Be Here Now: The Power of the Present During Transition
More than 50 years after it was published, Ram Dass' Be Here Now still offers a remarkably simple—and remarkably difficult—idea:
Be here. Now.
During major life transitions, our minds rarely cooperate.
After a divorce, we may replay what happened.
Approaching retirement, we may wonder who we will be without our professional identity.
After selling a business, we may immediately start searching for the next mountain to climb.
And following the loss of a spouse, memories of the past and uncertainty about the future can understandably occupy enormous emotional space.
Our "Transitional Well-Being" work is designed in part to help people reconnect with the present while they navigate that uncertainty. We use exercises around gratitude, handwriting and reflection, values, PERMA, social connection, and the different dimensions of well-being—spiritual, mental/brain, emotional, physical, and social.
The goal isn't to stop planning for the future. Good financial planning requires us to look ahead. But there is an important balance: Plan for tomorrow without missing today. A financial plan can model what the next 20 or 30 years might look like. But a meaningful life isn't lived inside a Monte Carlo simulation. It is lived in conversations, relationships, walks, meals, experiences, moments of gratitude—and sometimes simply sitting quietly enough to notice where we already are.
