Just try explaining to this ivy why it needs to create a 5-year plan. It is far too busy just living each moment.

Learning to live in the moment is no skill any child, pet, or insect has to learn.

It is the only skill they possess – the only one they know is possible.

This is also why pets, children, houseplants, and houseflies make such valuable mentors. Because we so easily tend toward forgetting this, and they are experts at reminding us.

If we are paying attention.

Moments matter for so many reasons. They matter because, quite literally, they are the only “life” we truly have. The past moment – the future moment – one we have already relinquished, and the other is not yet ours.

At the risk of sounding too existential, this is the bald-faced, incontrovertible, conscious truth.

Moments also matter because they contain so much valuable data – our emotions, our thoughts, our wants, our needs, our dreams, our aversions -  all are packed into each moment, as solidly as they can fit in.

We can learn so much about ourselves, others, and our lives when we live in our moments instead of around, before, or after them.

Perhaps most importantly, moments matter because if we want to be happy, the moment happening right now is the only chance we will ever have to achieve our goal. We can’t be happy yesterday or tomorrow. We can’t even be happy all day long today.

We can only be happy right now.

Moments are also great because they pass. If you are having a crappy one, it will be gone soon. If you don’t think you can outlast this day, you don’t have to do it all right now. Just outlast this moment…maybe the next one will be better.

And if it isn’t, it won’t last very long.

Moments are who we are – all that we are. They encapsulate absolutely everything we know about the living, breathing entity that is “us” – they are our life, passing by us in infinitesimal mincing blips, miraculous in how self-contained, confident, and yet humble they really are.

When the spotlight hits them, they shine.

And when their time is up, they step aside readily and give the next moment their space.

We can learn so much from the moments in our lives. We can let our past moments go, give the present-moment us room to grow, learn, fall, and rise, bid the future moment about to arrive a cheery welcome, learning about ourselves and our lives all the while.

Today’s Takeaway: How much do the moments in your life matter to you? How often do you notice each moment, coming in stage left, taking its place in center stage, and then exiting stage right? Could you learn more from each moment than you are learning right now? What would you stand to gain?

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    Last reviewed: 16 Jan 2012