Right Now

You know, God, I read a lot about the present moment, and how we're supposed to live in it all the time.  Right now, it's just after six on a Saturday morning.  I'm sitting here with my computer, doing work on websites and listening to the birds and looking out the window at the trees that are all around.  Am I fully living in the moment?  Or am I squandering these moments as they go by?  Is life all about making our moments extraordinary, or is it about fully enjoying and appreciating each moment as it goes by, whether it's extraordinary or not?

God's reply:

Given your last sentence, I believe that you already know the answer to this question, and you're looking more for validation of your feelings and your instinct than for an answer.  Besides, as you already know, I'm not one who gives definitive answers to you, since so much of your life experience is up to you and the way you live your life.

Each moment is a lifetime unto itself, full or choices and possible directions and outcomes.  Each moment is full of joy and beauty, though most people are so strongly focused on their problems and the ugly things of the world that they simply don't see the beauty and joy, or they see it as a very minor part of the moments in which they live.

The thing that I find most amazing is when people choose not to be appreciative of the gifts that are theirs for the taking in each moment.  I give possibilities galore to each of you, yet in any given moment you choose to ignore the gifts and turn on the TV to watch a rerun of a show you've seen twice already.  Or you choose to read the negative news that comes to you each day in your newspapers or online.  Or you choose to go on Facebook and play the same games that you've already played for many hours.

Each moment of your life already is extraordinary, and there you find the flaw in your original question.  You don't have to make any moment any thing--it already is what it is. You simply have choices to make as to what you're going to do with the moment and with its gifts, and whether you're willing to take the risks necessary to turn each moment into something very, very special, or continue to live it in the same ways that you've lived so many of your moments up until this present one--living on rote, doing the same things that you've always done, choosing the comfort of the known over the potential need for effort when you confront the unknown.