Living for today, living in the present moment, is to live for meaning and joy with a focus on the now, rather than the present or the future. In some life philosophies, living for the moment is destructive, devoid of learning from history and planning for the future, living without understanding the consequences. In other life philosophies, it is to transcend worry and old pain, to build memories and experiences that will become positive memories, to be free of destructive ties to the past or expectations and “shoulds” of the future.
You better live your best and act your best and think your best today; for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.
I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn’t know, I held opportunity.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
To be awake is to be alive.
Do not look back on happiness or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
To be hopeful in bad times is based on the fact that human history is not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
The best way to lead people into the future is to connect with them deeply in the present.
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now.
Live each day as if your life had just begun.
Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world. Stand in your own dooryard and you have eight thousand miles of solid ground beneath you, and all the sidereal splendors overhead.
I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.
How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now.
There are certain ways in which I cultivate awareness, both through mindful yoga and taking care of my body and taking time to actually drop as deeply as possible into stillness, into whatever is unfolding in the present moment.
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence;
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And Tomorrow is only a Vision;
But Today well lived makes every
Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, and every
Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.
The day I see a leaf is a marvel of a day.
How do I become still? By flowing with the stream.
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.
And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.
It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.
Empathy, I would say, is presence. Pure presence to what is alive in a person at this moment, bringing nothing in from the past.
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.
Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.
I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you’re born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.
Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
