The importance of celebrating today

(posted on Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine's blog)

The spring daffodils have started to bloom from the grassy patches at the side of the pavement, and every day feels closer to summertime.

Warmer days will be here before we know it, but I’d like to take a moment to appreciate this period of transition where the mornings are brisk, the breezes are strong, and change blossoms out of the soil.

There is a natural human tendency to fixate on what comes next. We sit at desks waiting for the working day to be over. We spend our nights worrying about next week’s deadlines. Personally, I’m always daydreaming about what my life will look like in a year’s time—in five years’ time, even. After all, visualizing the future can be a great way to motivate action towards goals. I can construct a fantasy of a life that’s better than the one I have now—one where I have more, and feel happier, and all of my problems have melted into the past.

However, as I create this internal vision board, I also create the implication that the present moment is not enough. I project myself into an imagined reality, and away from the actual life that surrounds me. By constantly looking forward, we can easily miss the beauty of existing right now. It’s an enormous privilege to have surroundings to notice—to be able to experience the present moment as it unfolds. We only have so much control over future events and circumstances. So, although it’s important to consider the direction we want to move in, it is more important to live that movement, and appreciate it as it takes place.

I am going to enjoy the spring, whether it decides to grace us with warm, sunny days, or heavy downpours of rain. I will notice the splashes of color that are bursting into nature without wishing that they would hurry. The season is changing around us, and I would like to experience it as it happens.