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Today's
quotation:
Ideally,
every human being ought to live each passing moment of his
or her life as if the next moment were to be their last. We ought
to be able to live in the constant expectation of immediate
death and
to live like this, not morbidly, but serenely.
Arnold
Toynbee
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Today's
Meditation:
I often say
to other people, "If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and
die. . . ." I only kind of mean it as a joke--
a
part of me knows that the possibility of me dying tomorrow
isn't great, but it's there. And keeping that in
mind helps me to make sure that I'm appreciating all
that's available to me in the present moment. If I
knew that I was going to die in an hour, after all, there
would be nothing to keep me from breathing deeply of the
fresh air available to me now, from being thankful for the
blessings that I have, from noticing the beautiful things
that surround me right here and now.
As
Arnold says, though, this is an ideal, not a
reality. It would be nice if we were to live this
way, but most of us don't-- rather, we spend our time
thinking about things that we wish we had, or about what
we want to accomplish next week or next month or next
year. We don't spend a lot of time focused on what's
around us here and now, the blessings that are with us all
the time. And that's quite a shame, because when we
live that way, we lose track of those many beautiful
things that are in our lives all the time, so that this
moment right now is a very special moment, indeed.
So
what does it mean to live each moment as if it were our
last? What does it mean to focus on the present
moment fully and completely in order to try not to miss a
single thing that it offers us? To me, it simply
means being aware of all that we have, all that is ours,
in a way that allows us to appreciate our blessings and
make the most of them. That little girl that's
begging for attention may be the best place for us to put
our attention; or perhaps the sunset that's happening
outside our home is begging us to partake of its beauty
and radiance. When this life ends, we won't be able
to do any of these things any more, so why not do them
now, while we can?
Taking
advantage of our present moments is simply one of the
blessings that we can experience if we keep in mind the
fact that one day we're going to die. Death keeps us
focused on the present moment and on enjoying our lives--
but only if we allow it to keep us so
occupied. And we can prepare ourselves for death
really in only one way-- by enjoying to the fullest all of
the many blessings that have been given to us. Our
impending deaths are always a strong reminder of the need
to stay focused on the present moment so that when our
eventual death becomes our impending death, we don't need
to worry about never having taken advantage of the many
present moments that have been given to us, one after the
other, our entire lives long.
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