The Present

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By:  Staci Stallings

I’ve been reading a very small book with a very big message.  It’s called, “Fish.”

One little poem in it that is probably rather old caught my attention today.  It went like this:

“The past is history.

The future is a mystery.

Now is a gift.

That’s why it’s called the present.”

In writing the books, I have written characters and walked with them through life, and one of the things I have found is that people who are “lost,” “searching,” or “hurting” are usually not living in the present.  They wish things had been different in the past, and they get stuck there.  They do not see that what they are doing RIGHT NOW is much more important to what will happen tomorrow.  They pine and wish and whine today away, so that today becomes a replica of yesterday.

The other side of the coin are people who live for tomorrow.  “Someday…”  “When…”  “If only…”  They will put life off until… I get a car, I get a house, I get into school, I get out of school, I get that new job, I get out of this job, I pay off the house, I retire…  And every day they waste is one more day they do not have.

The truth is that our lives are truly lived not on one side of the coin or on the other.  They are lived on that fine line of the edge of the coin between yesterday and tomorrow.

I have a plaque in my living room that reads:  Life is like a coin, you can spend it any way you want, but spend it wisely for you only get to spend it once.

How are you spending your “present”?  Is how you are spending now moving you forward?  Or are you waiting to start moving forward until the future happens?

Make wise use of your present.

It’s the only one you’ve really got.