All You Have Is Now — Appreciate and Seize the Present Moment
The present is all someone has. We go through life making plans for the future, deciding who we want to be. But in doing this, we get distracted and miss out on the things that happen in this present moment—the things that are happening right before our eyes. Master Oogway from the feature-length animated movie Kung Fu Panda says it clearly.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift; that’s why it’s called the present.
We have to realize that our past is behind us and our future is uncertain. The only thing we have is the present moment; it is truly the only thing we are guaranteed. Let us imagine life like an existential alarm clock; there is a set timer and when it sounds, time is up. The thing is, though, we don’t know how much time is left on that timer. We don’t know when the alarm will sound. So why should we waste our time?
In this present moment, we have the ability to make choices that can both better and help us, but such an ability doesn’t last forever. Marcus Aurelius writes on this in Meditations 5.1.
Not just that everyday more of our life is used up and less and less is left of it, but this too: if we live longer, can we be sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world—to the contemplations that aim at divine and human knowledge? If our mind starts to wander, we will still go on breathing, go on eating, imagining things, feeling urges, and so on. But getting the most out of ourselves, calculating whether it is time to call it quits—all the things you need a healthy mind for…all those are gone. So we need to hurry. Not just because we move closer to death, but also because our understanding—our grasp of the world—may be gone before we get there.
So as we get older, our mind and body begin to slow dow, and the things that we could once do are no longer an option. ’Tis the life of a human being. But we shouldn’t let this stop us from trying new things and living life. There’s a Latin phrase that most people, if not everyone, have heard: Carpe diem; seize the day. In this present moment, we have the ability to work towards our dreams and live a life that is worth living. We have to ask ourselves these questions: what can I do now? What things can I appreciate about the present moment?
Now is not the time to be lazy, to slack off and get complacent. There’s not much we can control in our lives, and though life has its ebbs and flows, we can shape the perceptive filter through which it flows. What can I do in this moment that will help me become a better person, to better the life that I am living now? We must seize the day and make the choices that will benefit us now and lay the seeds of progress for the future, ones that will get us to start being who we want to be.
Metaphor — If a person at a coffee shop wants to be a manager, will they act the run-of-the-mill rank-and-file employee? No. They are going to display traits of leadership and live and work with the mindset that shows the promoter that they can handle the responsibility of the position.
If we want to be better people in the future, if we want to achieve our goals, we must put our current mindset in the position of our wanted goal, taking action now to be the person or achieve the goal that we want our future self to have/experience. Even if we don’t make it to our future self, we can rest knowing that we did the best we could; we did everything in our power and control to make improvements in the present, to take this current moment to be better people.
Carpe diem, everyone.
