Here and Now

I BELIEVE that only one person in a thousand knows the trick of living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys, or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening)--or in a future which we either long for or dread. Yet the past is gone beyond prayer, and every minute you spend in a vain effort to anticipate the future is a moment lost. There is only one world, the world pressing against you at this minute. There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute--here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is--a miracle and unrepeatable.