The present unfolds when a need is met that previously was bothering you to the point of obsession. The shift of energy away from that place of obsession frees up awareness of the present and can help a person get more focused on living in the present. When you have an obsession, you're always living in the future, living in that moment of imagining what will happen when the obsession is realized. Nothing else exists after that moment and in many ways nothing exists before it. A person living in the present is likely free of such obsessions. S/he is living in the moment, hopefully aware of multiple possibilities, but not overly attached to any specific outcome. This occurs when we can leave behind the focus on the future and/or have the obsessions that fuel the focus on the future met. The clarity that results when those obsessions are realized is a clarity of purpose and awareness, for those obsessions no longer occupy your thoughts or emotions, freeing both resources up. The issue then is can a person keep those resources for the present or have them snapped up into the future?