TAKE A MOMENT TO CONSIDER THE PRESENT

As a child, I found my thoughts rarely coordinated with time. I was preoccupied with pondering what the next day would bring for me, and as I get older, my pondering has begun to grow into not just days, but months. Whether it is school, work, or relationships, I find myself thinking and worrying more about tomorrow rather than getting through today.

Some of you reading this may be indifferent to what I am spelling out to you, but I know for a fact that there are some of you out there who know exactly what I mean.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being organized and trying plan out the future. But at some point we have to slow it down and enjoy the life we have.

Everyone is motivated by something. I know my motivation used to be solely driven by a longing for a luxurious life. A life of cars, cribs, money – heck why not throw in a private jet, just for kicks. My mind was always bouncing ideas around about the future, but eventually I realized that I was so obsessed with achieving this lavish lifestyle and thinking of the future, that I could not even enjoy the moment of today.

Please do not mistake me: There is nothing wrong with having a lavish lifestyle. I would love to one day have a nice house, or be driving a Cadillac. But I do not want to live a life that has me chained to perishable possessions, much less a life spent constantly thinking about tomorrow.

With the end of the Winter Term, finals week, and spring break all approaching so soon, I can imagine that as students, we all share a similar burden of stress. It may not be quite as similar to “thinking about the future,” but we will find ourselves lost in a sea of endless thoughts.

I encourage you to stop for a minute, take a deep breath, be thankful for the life you have, and enjoy your day.

We all know that we have a finite amount of time, but we don’t know when the hourglass will bead its last grain of sand. The world will never stop spinning. In other words, time will never slow down for us. We can try and plan our future, but what we plan will never be for certain.

So, I say we stop living so much in the future and start living now.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again – there is nothing wrong with thinking about tomorrow. If I never thought of tomorrow, my life would be nothing but sporadic and restless. But know that there comes a time for all of us to take a breath, slow down, and set our minds free from what tomorrow may bring.

Let’s not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will worry about itself.

Let’s take life day by day, because each day has enough trouble of its own.