"Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it , it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so." Blaise Pascal in Human Happiness
Many great thinkers, religious leaders past and present, and all types of trusty wise folk have worked and written to remind us of the precious present, but still, it often escapes us and exists only as the moment taking us to the next or pulling us from the one before it. However, what is the present? If you think in terms of centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, and even minutes, then it is quite easy to consider the present, but time does not stop here. What about in terms of seconds? Milliseconds? On this smaller scale you may find it quite difficult to keep up with the present, as it is always changing. Ah, we arrive at our point. What is the present - it is a conscious awareness of the perpetual motion in which we exist. If change is constant, then so is the future and the past. In order for something to become a past moment we must move into the future - this is always happening - and this is the present. So, as Pascal says we don't, LIVE! The past, present, and future are pals and they move together, but yet we try to move around them or in them, or with one or the other, come together with it all, find the present, and live in it, there just may be some happiness there :)
