The only thing we really have is today. And just as importantly, today has us. We are all passing through this fragile ecosystem on a mysterious journey, which no one can take for us. We don’t know for sure when and where we began, whether at the moment of conception, or even before that, heaven only knows where. Nor are can we be certain where we will end up, whether simply ceasing to be at death, or going on, heaven only knows where.
The only thing that is fully real is this moment, as it unfolds, minute by minute. Yesterday is merely a memory, and a selective one at that. Tomorrow is but a dream, whether of pleasant or fearful bodings. We are no longer where we were yesterday, though we may act and think as if we still are, as if our relationships and jobs are exactly the same. Yet seen or unseen, sensed or unsensed, everything is evolving day by day, different as the date; only the present abides.
We do not know what tomorrow will bring. In a real way tomorrow never comes; only the next today emerges, ready or not. As Carl Sandburg wrote, “Life is a gamble; take a chance. Anything can happen in these sweepstakes. Around the corner may be prosperity or the worse depression yet. Who knows? Nobody. You pick a number, you take a card, you shoot the bones.”
It has been said that we humans are the only animals which can anticipate, if not to some extent live in, the future. There is an up and a downside to this. The upside has to do with the advantages of imagining and planning for this or that future. Should it arrive, you are prepared. People rightly plan for retirement. Thank heavens I did, because it is here now, and I was prepared to move forward into it.
The downside is that we can seem to begin to live in a possible tomorrow. This can boost our hopes as well as our fears. Jesus of Nazareth warned us against this; He said to stay in the present moment, to “let the day’s own troubles be sufficient for today.” Live fully in today, which is the really real, and let God take care of tomorrow.
Truth is, freedom dwells in the present, in today. Your memories won’t make you free; rather, they bind you to them when and as you face them. Neither will your dreams make you free; even the dream of some yet-to-appear freedom would prompt you to wait for it, freezing you in anticipation. Real freedom exists only in the present moment; when and as you are able to enter into your today, bringing with you all that you are, forgetting what lies behind and leaving alone what tomorrow may or may not hold. Then and only then can you fully experience your own existence, which is forever here and now.
My wife and I now live along the Pacific Ocean, in central coast, California. There are several beaches both to our north and south. We take frequent walks along one or another beach, breathing in the subtly salted air, absorbing the sunshine, listening to and looking at seagulls, sandpipers, and pelicans, and silently slipping into the rhythm of the waves. Whatever came before, whatever will come after was not present with us along the sands of our shared path. We were simply present, fully, to each other and to what nature gloriously offered us.
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