When we live in the moment, we live indeed.

Whenever we set out to do things beyond the norm, like taking a trip or going to a concert, it’s often that we resolve to “make the most of it,” and that is all well and good. It is essential to make the most of uncommon happenings. But at the same time it implies that the ordinary, the regular routines of life, are not worthy of such regard–that we can simply drift through them, do the motions, get by, merely DO rather than BE. We tell ourselves to be present when the extraordinary happens, to savor those moments. But what of this moment? What of now? Whatever now is, it is unique, irreplaceable, and we can never get it back. The present is all we will ever have–the past is gone, the future not yet made.

Yet while we hold the present in our hands, we reach out at the formless figments of what has yet to be.

I think we often overlook many wonderful things by underestimating ordinary life. We go to school, to work, to do this or that, run errands or do chores, all the simple yet consuming tasks of living, and how often we let them become automatic, to go through them in a sort of dreamlike unawareness, for these things have become routines, easy, predictable, suitable to put on the back burner while we occupy our minds with thoughts about the future or the past, about things other than now. Going through the day only to end up at the end of it without much recollection of what happened except for the menial tasks–without having really experienced it. All we remember are the same things from every day. It all blends together, making the weeks and months a blur of sameness, of unbeing. Is this the right thing to do? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I would argue that even the routine things in life can teach us something new every day, that by observation of the present, by turning off the endless spinning wheel of rumination and focusing on what is right in front of us, we can gain a sense of what it means to exist–not the foggy dream of going through the motions, but the sharp, defined contours of a deliberate, focused life.

It boils down to this: wherever your are, be there. When you’re in the shower, enjoy the shower. When you’re at work, focus and grow, expand rather than just get by. When you’re at play, truly play, do not go over your to-do lists in your head. When you’re with your family, BE WITH THEM, not just physically but in your mind, your thoughts, your actions, your intentions. And when you’re by yourself, sitting in traffic or walking on a quiet trail far away from the bustle of civilization, be with yourself–give yourself the benefit and respect of taking a moment to acknowledge that glimpse in time, that transient wisp of your life, that precious, soon to be gone, fragment of being.

Don’t sell life short. Make the most of all of it, not just the novel things. Because all of life is precious, and in each moment there is something that you have yet to see, yet to realize, yet to learn. You can live now, and only now. Don’t let what doesn’t yet exist steal that away from you–or lesser things, for that matter.

So make the most it, for it’s what you make of it, not what it makes of you. Life makes what it will of all of us. But not all of us make of life what we will.

Live deliberately. Live with eyes open. You’ll discover things that were sitting in plain sight all along.