So I got to thinking this morning; I was thinking about my goals and where I am in the process of reaching them. Out of nowhere, this vision popped into my head. In my minds eye I saw a long line that started right there as I stood in front of my vanity mirror brushing my teeth, stretching out into a limitless horizon, until coming to an end at it’s appointed destination in the future. It was as if time had become this tangible object; it had stopped existing as a “vehicle” (for lack of better words) which keeps moving forward, but instead, became a bridge that sprawled across an infinite chasm, connecting my now with my then.
So often, I find myself thinking of time in terms of then and now. Then is either the past or the future and now is, well, now; the present; there here and now. But no matter how you view time, regardless of whether it was or will be, time is, quite simply, now. Yesterday has become today and today will more than likely become tomorrow. And when tomorrow gets here it will become today all over again... does your head hurt yet?
You see, time really has no anchor. It’s always moving forward and try as we might, we cannot stop it. Regardless of how slow it can feel when we’re sitting in on another Business Meeting at work or how fast it can pass when we’re having fun, it just keeps moving along at the same speed. But on this ride which we call life, there is no putting it in reverse and going backward, nor is there any speeding allowed to get us to our destination any faster. We’re all passengers in this vehicle and we’re all going the same direction - forward. And even though some of us have very clear goals with very clear due dates, it’s all relative. Time has no qualms about whether you fix your goals for June 14th, 2012 or 2022. Ultimately, when you get there, miraculously, you still find yourself in today.
When you break it all down, the only time we really have available to us is now. Yesterday is completely gone and tomorrow is slowly becoming today. Today is all we have. Now. This moment. We do not and cannot live in the past or the future. We live now. Sure we can make an impact on our future by living wisely in the now, and yeah, today we may be feeling the results of our decisions from the past, but despite what we’ve done and what we will do, none of it could be experienced if not for this very moment.
So what are you doing right now? (I mean, besides reading this article, of course....) Are you dealing with anything that has tempted you to say, “I’ll take care of that later.”? Are you susceptible to procrastination? Do your goals have solid deadlines? Are you putting off until tomorrow what you could very well get done today? Hey, I’m not going to bust skulls here because in all honesty, these are all things that I do too! Let’s face it, life is full of mundane tasks that are so easy to push off onto tomorrow. (Boy, you gotta love that tomorrow. It sure does take on a ton of our B.S., doesn’t it?) But let me point out something - opportunity does not believe in tomorrow. Opportunity believes in today. It can’t survive in yesterday, it seldom waits for tomorrow and it most definitely believes in first-come-first-serve.
In order to live, I mean truly live, we need to embrace opportunity and the now. Hug your kids, kiss your spouse, dance naked to your favorite song or start writing that Novel you’ve been thinking about, but do it now. Sure, the odds are that there will be a tomorrow, but for some of us, there may not. How you spend the time that is here and now is up to you but I am begging you, don’t waste it, invest it. The moments we invest inevitably become our future, which inevitably become our now.
When you think of time as linear, it’s easy to say, “Tomorrow I will ….”. But when you think of time as a constant, there is no tomorrow. There is only the now. Live now because now truly is our past and our future all rolled up into the person we see in the mirror. Nobody else can live your now. That space is completely occupied by you and you alone. But be warned. In this thing we call life, if you decide not to live in the time you have been blessed with, someone will come along and decide it for you.
Time waits for no one but it is available to all. For those who will live now, live like there is no tomorrow. Why? Because when tomorrow gets here, amazingly we’ll still call it today.
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