There’s Nothing Like the Present

It‘s Everything

What are you doing now?

Not much.

Doesn’t that bother you?

No. Why would it?

Well, you’ve only got a limited amount of time to live. Responsibilities. You’re wasting time. That doesn’t bother you?

I’m not wasting time. Time moves no matter what I do. The limited amount of time I have doesn’t change by what I do with it.

Well, if you did something constructive or lasting, something good, something important, something pleasurable, something useful, then you used it well. If not, you wasted it.

Wasted? If I want to do any of those things, then I’ll do them.

Yeh, but what if you die before you get to do them? What if there’s something you can only do now because circumstances only exist now for them?

Then I didn’t waste time. I wasted, or rather, I chose not to use, the opportunity. I did what I wanted - nothing. If I want to do something, I do. There’s nothing “wasted” by not doing anything.

Are you saying that if you die tomorrow there won’t be anything you regret not doing today?

If I die tomorrow, I’ll be dead and won’t think anything, including regrets.

OK, wise guy. If tomorrow something happens and you know you’ll soon die, won’t you regret things you wanted to do but didn’t?

I doubt it. I use moments as I choose to, at the time of choice. Will I regret past choices? That seems silly. I can’t redo the past. Has the past changed how I approach the present? Perhaps. But apparently the past hasn’t taught me to not do nothing sometimes. Every moment is its potential.

Aren’t there things that take a lot of time which, if you do nothing will impact your ability to accomplish those things?

Yes. But doing nothing is its own pleasure too. Ultimately, my ability to choose is the reward of time, not the choice. Time is the reward, not the path to it. If I have it, I’m a winner.

But if time is the reward and you don’t use it, how is that a reward? Didn’t you waste the reward?

This now seems circular. You’re repeating Use time or Waste it. Time is not something to be used. It is what it is, while it is. I am what I am, while I am. I don’t need to use time or be or do anything. There’s nothing for me to change or fix or build, unless I decide I’d like to, and then I do. If I decide I want to build something that will take me 20 years, I’ll know I may not complete it. I’ll also know there may be other things I want to do, including doing nothing. But every moment is its own space in which to decide.

You seem to be avoiding the notion of missed opportunity. There are things that you might want to experience, that will never happen if you don’t act while certain circumstances exist. How is that not losing an opportunity? How is that not wasting your time?

You’re assuming I own the future. I don’t. All I have is a set of circumstances and the ability to choose from within them. Opportunities aren’t possessions. They present future possibilities. Time and my choice within it are my possessions. If circumstances change and a possibility disappears, I didn’t lose what I didn’t have - opportunity. I used what I had - my choice. I didn’t waste time. I used it – with my choice.

How is what you’re saying different than saying you lost an opportunity that you had?

Because I’m saying no one ever “has” opportunities. We only have choices.

What about regret? If you had a chance to do something that might have netted you something you wanted, and didn’t, won’t you regret your choice? Isn’t that motivation to act now so you don’t later regret your choice?

My current choice includes the possibility of future regret. I might choose to do nothing instead of honoring possible future regret. Past outcomes inform my awareness and choices now, but they don’t create responsibility. The power is my choice in the present moment.

How is that not being immature? Isn’t the mark of maturity, awareness and consideration of future consequences? If you discount future possibility and loss, for the sake of momentary relaxation, you seem to be shirking your responsibility as a mature adult.

Glad you mentioned maturity. I think your definition of it comes from when humanity was immature. We initially developed awareness of death, uncertainty, the uncontrollable. We reached for something higher than our limitations, god, if you will, something that owns the future and foreverness. That was insecurity, poor boundaries, and fear masquerading as responsibility. That was immaturity. We were still young as a thinking species.

Maturity doesn’t necessarily mean thinking forward, but thinking deeper, in the present, in the self, seeing more clearly what’s yours and what’s not, and acting from within that awareness. We only truly possess this moment and the choice within it.

Opportunities, imagined regrets, future consequences are possibilities, not possessions. To honor simply being, to inhabit the present fully, and to act from power that is yours, that’s responsibility and maturity. And we’ve immaturely ascribed that to a divine, when it belongs to us.

Preparation and foresight have value when they’re part of awareness and freedom of present choice, not as responsibility to or fear of something imagined as greater than me.

The current moment and our choice within it are all we’ve got. That’s all there is.

So, we’ve got all there is to have. Right now.

Time for a nap.