The Writer's Right

Enjoy your gift now. . .

How many times have you heard the phrase, “Today is a gift, that’s why they call it the present?” And how many times have you half-rolled your eyes and thought “yeah, yeah, sure.”

Our lives are too busy to think about right now. We’re busy planning for the future, and rushing around, ignoring today. But that’s just the wrong way to think about things, because today is all we can count on. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

A friend of mine is facing an uncertain future. Her husband has cancer. He was diagnosed last summer and while he’s made amazing progress, they know what the future will hold for them. I recently emailed her to see how things were and to catch up on some gossip. I miss chatting with her everyday, even if it was to bitch and moan about the work we were doing, or about each other. But either way, we had a great working friendship. She was always someone who had a good head on her shoulders and a great prospective on life.

Her husband isn’t doing as well as they’d like and she wrote this to me in the email:

“I think in all this, the hardest thing to deal with is there’s very little talk of the future. You don’t realize how many times as a couple you say things like “wow, I’d love to see the Grand Canyon, we should go there one day.” My only recommendation, Sam, is to just do the things you want to do….don’t try to save too much until later because at some point, it becomes too late.”

I think that’s a powerful paragraph. I’ve learned that myself. But I’ve also learned that you have to take care of yourself, because you never know how much time you have in your own life. So whether it means taking a trip by yourself or really starting a life with the one you love, you just need to go out and do it. Ignore the negative factors in your life because it truly is YOUR life. You have a right to go out and live it.

I pray for my friend and anyone else dealing with an uncertain future, but in reality, that means I pray for everyone. I’m not sure if this makes sense, but for me, it’s a powerful thought.

(I hope you don’t mind that you were my inspiration CP.)