by I think time is fascinating.
Why does it drag when we’d like it to go fast (like when we’re waiting in a line)?
Why does it fly when we’d like it to slow down (like when we’re on vacation)?
Why does a month seem like a year to a young person, while a year feels like a month to an older person?
Diedra and I have a pact to do our level best to not wish our lives away–always yearning for the next phase (which is tempting when you’re feeling exhausted of taking care of little ones).
The present is the most real time we have. And it’s a type of work to live in it. It’s so tempting to long for the past or yearn for the future, and as a result, waste the present.
One of our strongest weapons is thankful observation. We have to develop the mental habits of noticing the people, the happenings, the natural beauty that are here now–and to notice them with thanksgiving. Wow! Look at those stars! The moon is so amazing tonight. The fall colors are so brilliant here! Hear that kid’s laugh? It’s contagious! Thank you, Lord!
Trigger: This poopie diaper. It reeks. So bad. So tempting to long for the future–one without the stink.
Better: “Thank You for this child–this child our empty arms ached for, and who is now here.”
God bless you, my friends. I’m thankful for you. May you live in the present today.
“We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is.”
Pascal, Pensees, 47 quoted in Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans, 74.