3 - Choices: Selecting Time

Learn by your mistakes.
Live for today.
Save for tomorrow.

stopwatch“We are always getting ready to live but not really living.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Do those words describe your approach to life? Our whole philosophy of time, and how we organize our lives around what time means to us, will have far-reaching consequences.

“Life for Now” is an expression used by the islanders of Trinidad to sum up their belief that the immediate moment is all any person can count on in life. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet arrived, but you have today. Make the most of today. Seek to be in touch with what you are doing, how you are feeling and acting, and what is happening to you right now.

Now is often forgotten and becomes nothing more than the time you pass through on your way to the future. The expectations and the goals we have take control. One loses one’s personal self and sense of the moment by becoming too entangled with accumulating goods. Life should be focused on people, not on the pursuit of future material goals.

Nothing is wrong with knowing what you want out of life in a material sense nor in dreaming of owning a beautiful new car and a lovely house. However, if these material goals are allowed to become the central focus of your life instead of personal growth, life will pass you by and you might not be able to enjoy your possessions.

Time consumed in looking forward to tomorrow’s achievements or in lamenting about the past is time lost in the vital present. The loss of that present time reduces your awareness of what is happening right now. Past and future are certainly relevant, but asking how relevant they are and giving them no more than the appropriate amount of attention are necessary. Do not plan for the future at the expense of the present.

You can learn from your mistakes. Even if your problems originated from past situations, those problems exist in the present and must be dealt with in the present. They can only be worked out in terms of your day-to-day actions. For example, how you solve your problems now, how you experience joys now, how you share your feelings and the degree to which you share them with your loved ones now will determine the nature of your relationship. Your interaction with others now is what makes for meaningful relationships. If there is no relating now, how can there be in the future?

One man made himself more aware of “today” and the present by having a daily calendar rather than a monthly one. As each day ended, he threw that calendar day in the waste basket and looked forward to the immediate upcoming day that appeared on his calendar. Think about making the most of the present.

calendarLook to this day!
For it is life,
the very life of life...
For yesterday
is already a dream
and tomorrow
is only a vision;
But today, well lived,
makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow
a vision of hope.