When I was growing up in Mexico, a series of commercials ran on television with a simple but piercing message: “El hubiera no existe.” The should have doesn’t exist.

Each ad showed a moment where something small failed to happen. Like a word not spoken, or a step not taken, or a decision postponed. Then the screen opened into an imagined future, revealing everything that might have unfolded if that single action had occurred. People found love. People gained fortune. They had a different life entirely. And just as the vision reached its peak, the story snapped back to reality. None of it happened. Because the moment had passed. Because the should have does not exist.

Now, years later, I hear echoes of those commercials in conversations with family. Investments not made, or risks avoided, or paths unseen at the time that now appear obvious in hindsight. My dad speaks of them calmly, without dwelling, but the question lingers beneath the surface: What if?

But life never unfolds inside the imagination. It unfolds only in the present.

Yogi Ramacharaka wrote that “the man who wastes his time in regrets over the past, or fears for the future, is throwing away the present, which alone is his.” In a single sentence, the entire burden of what might have been dissolves. Because the past is not a field we can re-enter. And the future is not a script we can preview. There is only this living moment. The eternal now. Breathing, moving, offering itself again and again as the true place of power and attention.

From the yogi view, nothing real is ever lost. Every missed road, every unseen opportunity, every apparent mistake becomes part of the exact path required for your unfolding. What did not happen was never yours to live. What remains before you now is.

There was a lot of wisdom hidden inside those funny old commercials. The should have doesn’t exist. But the now does. And within this moment lives every possibility that truly belongs to you.