“Today, or better yet, this moment, is all there is or all there ever will be.”

A thought by Henry Cloud, from his book, The Law of Happiness: How Spiritual Wisdom and Modern Science Can Change Your Life (The Secret Things of God) (p. 47). Howard Books. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Yes, there are activities in our today that will make a difference in how we live tomorrow but this moment is all we really have.

Henry says, “Research has shown that people’s ability to focus on the moments they are experiencing right now, the joys and pleasures of the present, actually make them happier and less stressed and depressed. Happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the leading happiness scientists, puts it this way: ‘People who are inclined to savor were found to be more self-confident, extraverted, and gratified and less hopeless and neurotic. . . . Those skilled at capturing the joy of the present moment—hanging on to good feelings, appreciating good things—are less likely to experience depression, stress, guilt, and shame.’

“Lyubomirsky goes on to cite how people were given the exercise to savor two pleasurable experiences a day, even mundane experiences, and others were asked to take a few minutes to relish normal experiences and write about how they experienced them. Both had improvements to their moods and depression. (1)”

Henry goes on, “Some systems of therapy that have strong empirical proof behind them are built around helping people to develop ‘mindfulness,’ which is the ability to focus on one’s experience and be with it, right in the now. One continuing education class for psychologists that I took spent an entire hour getting us to try to ‘experience the moments that we were experiencing’ right then and there and to describe them to one another. It was amazing how difficult that was for a room full of PhDs who have spent most of their lives ‘training for the future.’ It was an art that many of them reported as having lost along the way with so much left-brained schooling.

“But, as research proves, when psychologists can get their clients to do just that, to be ‘in the now’ with their lives, feelings, and experiences, their clinical symptoms of depression, stress, and other maladies improve.”

Let’s not waste our moments but truly live them.  Let’s start right now, okay? 

Yes, yes!