The Elusive Today

I have decided that the hardest thing in life is to live in the present. Anyone who knows me well could tell you that I am the strongest advocate of the present. I believe it is the key to true bliss and contentment, and it is the source of wisdom and knowledge. But it is without a doubt the hardest thing to grasp. And it is so ironic because it is ours for the taking yet we constantly overlook its relevance and importance in an effort to find more and satiate our curiosity. The future is so much more enticing because we don't have it, and as humans, we always want what we can't have - at least, what we can't have immediately. The fact that the future is unknown and new makes it that much more desirable. Because of our curious hunger for possibility, we miss the now that makes us who we are. As the narrator says in Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, "Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are." Where we are is the present, in which who we are is deeply embedded. It might take suffering and heartache, but I am determined to take it by force. I will continue to hope for and dream of the future, but first and foremost, I will hold to the present. It is all I have, and my heart needs to know who I am.