Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow has not arrived and may not happen.
The only place life can touch you…
Is right here. Right now.
People are always on their way somewhere.
To work.
To school.
To appointments.
To vacations.
To meetings.
To retirement.
To the next thing.
After arriving there, they immediately begin preparing to go somewhere else.
Life becomes one continuous journey from destination to destination.
But what if we have overlooked something important?
What if the most valuable part of life is not where we are going…
But where we already are?
The moment you are in is all there really is.
YOU ONLY GET SO MANY OF THESE.
They are called moments.
Yesterday is gone.
Your mind can revisit it.
Replay it.
Analyze it.
Celebrate it.
Regret it.
But yesterday no longer exists.
It survives only as memory.
Tomorrow is different.
Tomorrow lives in imagination.
You can plan for it.
Hope for it.
Fear it.
Dream about it.
But tomorrow does not exist either.
Not yet.
Both yesterday and tomorrow require that you leave the present moment to visit them.
The only thing that is truly real is now.
THINGS COME AND GO.
PEOPLE COME AND GO.
PLACES COME AND GO.
THOUGHTS COME AND GO.
BUT MOMENTS LIVE IN ETERNITY.
The present moment stands alone.
Without competition.
Without rival.
Without substitute.
The past tries to imitate it.
The future tries to imitate it.
Neither succeeds.
Only now contains reality.
Everything important eventually arrives in the present moment.
Problems arrive here.
Solutions arrive here.
Love arrives here.
Opportunity arrives here.
Life itself arrives here.
If God were to speak, it would be in the present moment.
If you won an award, you would hear it in the present moment.
If your life changed forever, it would happen in the present moment.
The moment is where everything happens.
As I wrote in Pearls for the Soul:
“The present moment is life’s delivery system. Miss the moment and you miss the message.”
— Richie Naggar, Pearls for the Soul
Many people spend their lives escaping the moment.
They travel into thought.
Into worry.
Into regret.
Into fantasy.
Into fear.
Into endless mental activity.
Meanwhile life continues flowing right past them.
STOP.
LOOK.
OBSERVE.
RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO ANALYZE.
JUST WATCH.
Watch the clouds.
Watch the birds.
Watch the people.
Watch the children.
Watch yourself.
Become available to the moment.
There is something remarkable about being fully present.
You begin noticing things you never noticed before.
You hear more.
See more.
Understand more.
Appreciate more.
The world becomes richer.
Not because it changed.
Because you showed up.
In emergencies, professionals are trained to remain present.
Astronauts.
Doctors.
Pilots.
First responders.
Why?
Because solutions exist in the moment.
Panic takes you away from the moment.
Calm returns you to it.
WHEN YOU ARE CALM…
YOU ARE CENTERED.
WHEN YOU ARE CENTERED…
YOU CAN SEE.
WHEN YOU CAN SEE…
YOU CAN RESPOND.
A surgeon does not operate successfully by worrying about tomorrow.
A firefighter does not save lives by replaying yesterday.
They focus on now.
The moment contains everything needed for the next step.
That is why presence is so powerful.
Life is not asking you to solve your entire future.
Life is asking you to handle this moment well.
Then the next one.
Then the next.
And before you know it…
A beautiful life has been lived.
The mind is a wonderful tool.
Use it.
Visit it.
Create with it.
Plan with it.
Learn with it.
But do not live there.
Life is happening out here.
In the now.
In the moment.
In the simple experience of being alive.
And finally…
When you are with someone you love…
Put down the distractions.
Turn off the noise.
Stop thinking about where you have been.
Stop worrying about where you are going.
Be there.
Fully.
Because one day you will discover that what mattered most was never the destination.
It was the moments you shared along the way.
Make them count.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
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