Living in the Moment

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why I call it the present." I disdain this quote, as it at once affirms both the American preoccupation with "the moment" and the practical impossibility of living in it. While the original quote, of which the aforementioned populist phrase is but a segment, comes from Alice Morse Earle's 1902 book Sundials and Roses of Yesterday", it speaks acutely to the present era and what I'll call the information-overload generation. The quote, is naively optimistic. It beseeches that we make the most of today because it is the only time we have, for we know not what tomorrow brings -- if it comes at all. It's lovely, really. It's a great mantra for the summer months when school children have little to do. But for most of us, unfortunately, its impractically fails at resonating.

We live in a society that values clinging to the moment -- a tryst with carpe diem -- but it's a fantasy that must exist to ironically distract us from its inverted reality. Our society runs on deadlines. It requires planning and preparation, management and oversight. It requires thinking again and backtracking to make sure that everything is taken care of. Often, it requires multitasking, which by definition precludes one from giving full attention to one task. Unless one is a guest at an event and good at compartmentalizing the bottomless To-Do list we all accrue, then living in the moment, as the apposition would infer, is culturally inconceivable.