Live in the Present

"Having spent the better part of my life trying either to relive the past or experience the future before it arrives, I have come to believe that in between these two extremes is peace." ~Author Unknown

Living for today is not always easy. We all occasionally get caught up in worrying about what will happen tomorrow or what happened yesterday. The unfortunate thing is that this results in us completely missing today. We miss the simple things like beautiful sunsets, the sound of birds singing, and the smell of fresh rain because we are inside pacing the floor fretting over yesterday or tomorrow. We also miss the bigger, more important things such as our children's laughter, an opportunity to help a friend, or a quiet night with our loved ones because even though we may be there physically, we are absent mentally, still trapped in yesterday or moving ahead into tomorrow.

Missing today, with all its wonderful opportunities to enjoy things and see things and feel and love, is nothing short of throwing away a portion of the time that we have been allotted here on earth. How can we prevent this from happening? How can we not allow ourselves to waste our precious time?

One thing we can do is to realize that there is nothing we can do about yesterday. It is forever gone. The best we can do is to evaluate it honestly, then let it go. If, after our evaluation, we realize that we didn't live it to the best of our ability, that we hurt someone, or didn't do what we should have done, or act the way we should have acted, we can promise ourselves to do better today. If we did something for which we need to make amends, then by all means, we must do it. Then let it go.

Just as important, we cannot spend today worrying about tomorrow. It isn't even here yet, and often the things we fear the most about tomorrow never happen. We have no way of knowing what is in store because we do not have access to the big picture. It could be something wonderful, and then we would have spent our time and energy worrying over nothing.

The key is to make the best of today because if we are busy doing that, there isn't time to anticipate the future or fret over the past. When our minds do leap to the future, we can try to think of it with optimism. And when we accidentally slip back into the past, be grateful for the lessons learned or for the great times we experienced.

"The past is a good place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." ~Author Unknown