The Present Is A Gift

I worry about things. I worry about global warming. I worry about AIDS. I worry about the end of the world. I spend so much time worrying about these far-off threats, which are scary as hell, that I sometimes lose track of what's going on in the here and now.

And fundamentally, here and now is all that we ever have. I have struggled my entire life to realize that there are no act breaks in my life. Each moment leads inexorably into the next, whether or not I'm aware of the change. I guess that's why procrastination is so damned seductive. If we can compartmentalize our lives into "now" and "then" we give ourselves the illusion of control. We can trick ourselves into thinking that Time's March is interrupted from time to time, giving us a chance to breathe and reflect before we carry on. That would be nice. But it's bullshit. I think it's more important to disabuse ourselves of that idea and concentrate on "now."

I'm not sure if I mean to say that today is all that matters or not. I think maybe I do, actually. Today is the day that we write that novel, or we don't. Today is the day that we cure cancer, or we don't. Today is the day that we take that drink, or we don't. It's really not even today, though. It's the moment, and the next moment, and then the one after that. Each one is a gift, and how we use them will determine what kind of gifts we get next. But, regardless of how we use them, they keep coming until they stop.

I think I've wandered a bit off my original topic, so I'm going to get back to it now.

What is it? Simply this: the future is uncertain. It may be shitty or it may be great, and a lot of it depends on us. But all we can do is to make the best choices now, today, in this moment, in each moment. Being alive may seem like an unrelenting task sometimes, but it is one I firmly believe is worth the trouble.