now 2 - now 3

Love the moment.  Flowers grow out
of dark moments.  Therefore, each
moment is vital.  It affects the whole.
Life is a succession of moments and
to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

   

This--this was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the girl's voice. . . a moment of captured beauty.  Those who are truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.

Louis L'Amour

      
Begin doing what you want to do now.  We are not living in eternity.  We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand. . . and melting like a snowflake.  Let us use it before it is too late.

Marie Beynon Ray


Every second is of infinite value.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  
Each moment is magical, precious and complete and will never exist again.  We forget that now is the moment we are in, that the next one isn't guaranteed.  And if we are blessed with another moment, any joy, creativity or wisdom it brings will ensue from the way we live in the present one.

Susan L. Taylor
   

On Arturo Toscanini's eightieth birthday, someone asked his son, Walter, what his father ranked as his most important achievement.  The son replied, "For him there can be no such thing.  Whatever he happens to be doing at the moment is the biggest thing in his life-- whether it is conducting a symphony or peeling an orange."

Ardis Whitman

  

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

Cesare Pavese

   

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Hold to the now, the here,
through which all future plunges to the past.

James Joyce

  

The past is gone, and I don't know what's coming in the future.
It's obvious that if I want my life to be whole, to resonate with
feeling and integrity and value and health, there's only one way
I can influence the future:  by owning the present.  If I can relate
to this moment with integrity, and then this moment with integrity,
and then this moment with integrity, wakefully, then the sum of
that is going to be very different over time, over mind moments
that stretch out into what we call a life, than a life that is lived
mostly on automatic pilot, where we are reacting and being
mechanical and are therefore somewhat numb.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

   

I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment
and not what I decided was best for me yesterday.

Hugh Prather

   

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common
sense to extract its utmost value from it.

W. Somerset Maugham

  

Love the moment and the energy of the moment
will spread beyond all boundaries.

Corita Kent

  

  

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute
by minute, day by day, in all
the thousand small, uncaring ways.

Stephen Saint Vincent Benet

now 2 - now 3

But what minutes!  Count them by sensation,
and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.

Benjamin Disraeli

  

It is privilege of living to be . . . acutely, agonizingly conscious
of the moment that is always present and always passing.

Marya Mannes

  

   

Our latest moment is always our supreme moment.  Five minutes delay 
in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.

Samuel Butler

   

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of
the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  

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I have the happiness of the passing moment,
and what more can mortal ask?

George R. Gissing

  

My philosophy is that not
only are you responsible
for your life, but doing your
best at this moment
puts you in the best place
for the next moment.

Oprah Winfrey

  
  

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.


John Greenleaf Whittier

 

The only time that any of us have to grow or change or feel or learn
anything is in the present moment.  But we're continually missing
our present moments, almost willfully, by not paying attention.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try;
If we don't, it doesn't matter, we'd better start to die.

Wystan Hugh Auden

 

Every person's life lies within the present, for the past is
spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

Marcus Antonius

 

 

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.  So
our prospects brighten on the influx of greater thoughts.  We
should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took
advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which
confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and
did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities,
which we call doing our duty.  We loiter in winter while it is already spring.


Henry David Thoreau

  

Do we need to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky?
Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it?  No, we just enjoy it.
Each second, each minute of our lives can be like this.
Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine,
the presence of each other, even the sensation of our breathing.
We don't need to go to China to enjoy the blue sky.
We don't have to travel into the future to enjoy our breathing.
We can be in touch with these things right now.

Thich Nhat Hanh

  

To be reborn hourly and daily in this life, we need to die--to give of
ourselves wholly to the demands of the moment, so that we utterly
"disappear."  Thoughts of past, present, or future, of life and death,
of this world and the next, are transcended in the superabundance
of the now.  Time and timelessness coalesce:  this is the moment
of eternity.  Thus our every act is a matter either of giving life or
taking it away.  If we perform each act with total absorption, we give
life to our life.  If we do things half-heartedly, we kill that life.

Philip Kapleau

 

There is only the moment.  The now.  Only what you are experiencing
at this second is real.  This does not mean you live for the
moment.  It means you live in the moment.

Leo Buscaglia

  

Most people don't allow the happy moment, because they're so busy
trying to get a happy life.

Esther Hicks

  
But tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live.  There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.  But it is just this reality of the present, this moving, vital now which eludes all the definitions and descriptions.  Here is the mysterious real world which words and ideas can never pin down.  Living always for the future, we are out of touch with this source and center of life, and as a result all the magic of naming and thinking has come to something of a temporary breakdown.

Alan Watts
The Wisdom of Insecurity
   

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If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass,
you live more richly those moments.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh
   

What we are talking about is learning to live in the present moment,
in the now.  When you aren't distracted by your own negative thinking,
when you don't allow yourself to get lost in moments that are gone or
yet to come, you are left with this moment.  This moment--now--truly is
the only moment you have.  It is beautiful and special.  Life is simply a
series of such moments to be experienced one right after another.  If
you attend to the moment you are in and stay connected to your soul and
remain happy, you will find that your heart is filled with positive feelings.

Sydney Banks

  

It is always wise to stop wishing for things long enough
to enjoy the fragrance of those now flowering.

Patrice Gifford

now 2 - now 3

Death teaches us--if we want to hear--that the time is now.  The time
is now to pick up the telephone and call the person that you love.  Death
teaches us the joy of the moment.  It teaches us we don't have forever.
It teaches us that nothing is permanent.  It teaches us to let go, there's
nothing you can hang on to.  And it tells us to give up expectations and
let tomorrow tell its own story, because nobody knows if they'll get home
tonight.  To me that's a tremendous challenge.  Death says, "live now."

Leo Buscaglia
Living, Loving, and Learning
  

There are those of us who are prisoners of the future.  We don't
know what will happen but we worry so much that the future
becomes a kind of prison.  The real future is made only of one
substance, and that is the present.  What else can the future be
made of?  If we know how to take care of the present moment
the best we can, that's all we can do to assure ourselves of a
good future.  We build the future by taking care of the present moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh
How to Walk

  
A Sonnet
Richard Chenevix Trench

We live not in our moments or our years—
The Present we fling from us like the rind
Of some sweet Future, which we after find
Bitter to taste, or bind that in with fears,
And water it beforehand with our tears—
Vain tears for that which never may arrive:
Meanwhile the joy whereby we ought to live
Neglected or unheeded disappears.
Wiser it were to welcome and make ours
Whate’er of good, though small, the present brings—
Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds and flowers,
With a child’s pure delight in little things;
And of the griefs unborn to rest secure,
Knowing that mercy ever will endure.
   

       
    

Found online:
 

 
(Found online images come from a variety of unattributed
sources from various social media pages.  They're too nice
not to share!)

    
   

Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.

    
   

    
    

Articles and book excerpts on now:

Bless Today:  It Will Never Come Again      Charlotte Davis Kasl
Living in the Moment      Susan L. Taylor

Look at Life through the Windshield      Patti LaBelle

Mindfulness of This Moment      Jon Kabat-Zinn

Your Hidden Potential      Ari Kiev

Living with the Heart of a Child      Joe Mazzella

Living in the Moment      Paul Bauer

The Precious Present      Spencer Johnson

A Psalm of Life      Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sprouting Seeds--the Roots of Self-Growth      Gary Barnes

Start Living in Prime Time      Denis Waitley

Start Today      Joe Mazzella

Three Wondrous Answers      Lev Tolstoy (retold by Thich Nhat Hanh)