Now what?

It was my birthday last Tuesday, and I had the best surprise delivered to me early in the morning by my LOML 😊. It was a nice breakfast spread, delicately set under a canopy of balloons draping from the ceiling, with a few photo cards dangling from them. Just beside this breakfast of champions were gift bags from her (and a box from my siblings 💗) and a well-written, heartfelt note to top it all off. The scrambled eggs was bussing, ngl, and we ended the day in a park with yet another picnic spread 😋. But that’s enough about my birthday.

I was on a 2-hour video call with a handful of my secondary school mates last night. We shared memories and laughs, and it was such a refreshing event. It didn’t get me thinking at first, but now that I’m writing you this letter, dear reader, I realize again how little of our “alive time” is actually ours!

Think about it: our existence can effectively be summed up in three parts: the past, the present, and the future. “The present” provides a sense of longevity that it actually lacks. Calling it “now” puts it into much clearer view and helps us understand how flimsy (almost non-existent) the present actually is. For most of you reading this, there’s a bulk of time already in the past, likely even more time locked away in the future, and then there’s now — which very quickly slips into “the past.”

The moments that I relived with my classmates on that call are sweeter in retrospect and were likely unnoticeable in the instant when they were happening.

What are you doing “now” my friend?

You’ll answer that question as best as it applies to you. It will likely give you a flash of introspection, maybe even a hint of regret or self-judgment. But before you go too deep in thought, I’d like to remind you that “now” is too short for regret. Life is for the living, and live it we must!

Till the next one my friend,

🥂