(Source: Videvo)
Just click the above video to recall memories of what a holiday used to look like – Oh those wonderful times of crowded airports, long queues, long-drawn-out security checks, waiting for the boarding call, the hustle and bustle at the luggage carousel upon arrival...sighhhh… wish we could use one of those Harry Potter type spells…Covidus Vanishus...and make Covid disappear!! Well, my objective for posting this video wasn’t to make you feel regretful about how much our world has changed.
Did you notice that extremely colorful suitcase at the end of the line? Now imagine that your suitcase was one of the ones in front of it and you were distracted enough by this multicolor suitcase to miss picking up yours as it went past you. No harm done…you could just wait for your suitcase to come around again, right?
Unfortunately, life is not like a luggage carousel. If you think of your past, present, and future as a continuous sequence, at any given time in your life all you have on hand or directly in front of you is your 'present'. Now if you ignore that 'present' and dwell on the 'past', your 'present' will soon become your 'past', right? As for the 'future', while it is good to do some planning for it before it becomes your ‘present’, you cannot afford to spend all your mental energy in the 'future' at the expense of your 'present'. Hopefully, I didn’t confuse you to the point where you decided not to continue reading! 😉
Mahatma Gandhi said, "The future depends on what we do in the present". The present moment is all we have, and once it is gone, it is gone forever. The Beatles star George Harrison had this to say about the past, present, and future – “It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.”
The “carousel” of life sure ain’t bringing back our “suitcase” if we fail to pick it up so we need to focus most of our energies on the present. We can learn from past experiences, and we can plan for the future to a certain extent…but the key is to stay in the present and make the best of what we have. For some of us, it might need a mindset shift if we’ve always had the tendency to focus too much on the past or the future.
TODAY IS THE PRESENT
Here's another analogy for how to look at life. We’ve just come off the 2020 Christmas. Great time for receiving gifts. Hope you got some wonderful gifts this time, especially in view of the torrid year that we just left behind! When you’re opening your Christmas gifts, do you think about the gifts you received last Christmas or what you might receive next Christmas? Surely not, right? After all, what use is a gift if you aren’t willing to enjoy or appreciate it when it is given to you? Bill Keane said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”
Exactly!! ‘Today’ is your gift, ‘Now’ is your gift. Do not devalue it by thinking about the past or the future. Grab your present and take whatever actions necessary to make not just your present better but also your future.
There is a wonderful metaphorical story that might be known to many of you but is well worth reproducing here as it is very relevant to the topic of this blog. The original author is unknown but apparently, it was found in the billfold of Coach Paul Bear Bryant, Alabama after he died in 1982.
THE MAGIC BANK ACCOUNT
Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest:
Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400 into your account for your use.
However, this prize has some rules, just as any contest has rules.
The set of rules:
1. Everything that you didn't spend during each day would be taken away from you.
2. You may not transfer money into some other account.
3. You may only spend it.
4. Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another $86,400 for that day.
5. The bank can end the game without warning; at any time it can say “Game over”, close your account and you will not receive a new one.
What would you do?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?
Not only for yourself, but for all people you love and care for.
Maybe even for people you don't know, because you couldn't possibly spend it all on yourself, right?
Wouldn’t you try to spend every cent, and use it all because whatever you don’t use will disappear?
Actually, this game is REAL!!
No, this isn’t some con or Ponzi scheme!
Each of us is already a winner of this prize! We just can't seem to see it.
That prize is TIME!!!
Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is gone…poof…not carried over to the next day.
What we haven't lived up that day is forever lost. Yesterday is forever gone.
Each morning our account is refilled, but when our time’s up, our account will be shut down.... without warning!
So, what will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds?
Aren't they worth so much more than the same amount in dollars?
Think about that, and remember to value and enjoy every second of your life, because time races by so much quicker than you think.
So to all you wonderful people reading this blog…Here’s wishing you a terrific day…Start spending!!!