Have you ever wondered why people talk about being “in the present”? Why not be in the future or the past? I mean, if I won a million dollars yesterday, I would love to hang out a little in the past and just keep enjoying the moment when I got that call letting me know I just won myself a million dollars! If I know tomorrow is likely to be the best day of my life, or even just a little bit better than today, why not want to be in the future? There are so many possibilities ahead, what’s not to love about the future? Of course, you could argue that the past is better than the present because it is certain; no matter what, the past is the past, and we know what happened. No surprises. Yet the future might be seen as better than the present because it is full of possibilities. You might just meet the love of your life tomorrow. Or maybe you’ll win that million dollars.
So why so much emphasis on the present? Why should I be in this moment, especially when this moment might just be the moment I am supposed to go take an exam for my Finance class? (Just so you know... Finance was definitely not my favorite class. No offense to all of you finance people. I’m glad you love it and are taking care of that part of the world for me.)
If you think about it (and this is going to require some thinking), in some ways the present IS the past and the future, so being in this moment means you are in the past and also in the future. We can never stop time running through our fingers. Like now—while you are reading this sentence, time is slipping by without you even realizing it. The last second has just become the past and your next second in the future is already becoming the present. So it’s strange that we have to struggle with actually being in the present—being right here, right now—when every moment is the present as it touches the past and future. If you take a deep breath and enjoy this moment, you can actually feel that it is combined with the past, present, and future, because everything about you, every moment of your life, is formed by every present you have experienced, and all your presents yet to come.
A Quote and a Poem to Keep You Thinking About Being Where You Are:
First, the quote: After the passing of his friend, Michele Angelo Besso, Albert Einstein sent a letter to Besso’s family in which he wrote, “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
And now the poem:
The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything from Happening at Once X.J. Kennedy (The Lords of Misrule). Johns Hopkins University Press.
Suppose your life a folded telescope
Durationless, collapsed in just a flash
As from your mother's womb you, bawling, drop
Into a nursing home. Suppose you crash
Your car, your marriage; toddler laying waste
A field of daisies, school kid, zit-faced teen
With lover zipping up your pants in haste
Hearing your parents' tread downstairs; all one.
Einstein was right. That would be too intense.
You need a chance to preen, to give a dull
Recital before an indifferent audience
Equally slow in jeering you and clapping.
Time takes its time unraveling. But, still,
You'll wonder when your life ends: Huh? What happened?