What can I learn in one minute that will be useful for the rest of my life?

Question originally asked on Musing.io - Click here to see other answers

Focus on the present, especially when shit hits the fan. Cliche as it may sound, when we are worked up with emotions, it's because we are "living" in the past or the future.

Mind you, living and thinking are very different. You can think of the past to draw experience, and you can think of the future to set goals. "Living", however, will get you to become emotional (especially when recalling negative experiences in the past, or falsely hopeful when thinking of the bright, sunny future.)

The moment you know you're overwhelmed with emotions, take 2 steps back, disassociate yourself from the situation (kinda like those special effects in movies where the soul leaves the body), and focus on the Present. You will find that in the present, there are no emotions. Even if someone slapped you a millisecond ago, that's already in the past.

This was a lesson thought to me a long time ago when I was a Buddhist monk, but it took me easily 10 years to finally understood it. And it took my mom's cancer to relapse for me to really, really accept it.