Mojo Monday ~ Being Present

"Each today, well-lived, makes yesterday a dream of happiness and each tomorrow a vision of hope. Look, therefore, to this one day, for it and it alone is life." ~ Sanskrit poem

Excerpt from the novel Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble

“I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I’m not finished. You’re not finished. Nothing is over. I don’t want to die.

It’s like the world is suddenly all new and wondrous and exciting again. Like I’ve been wearing blinkers, or something, all these years. Never lay back and watched clouds changing shapes. Or raindrops hit leaves. Or saw just how perfectly smooth a baby’s skin is. Never really listened to children laughing or choirs sing or how beautiful an oboe sounds.

All at once, the world—the same one I used to view with indifference—is the most perfect, fascinating, amazing place that I cannot bear to leave.

And you, my girls. I don’t want to leave you. I haven’t finished. I haven’t told you often enough how much I love you and how amazing you are. I haven’t helped you enough. Confronted you enough. Listened to you enough. SEEN you enough.

Every minute you already had that I wasn’t with you feels like a waste, a missed opportunity. I should have home schooled you. I should never have left you with a babysitter because I thought I’d scream if I didn’t have an hour without you. Why did I ever think that, anyway?

I sound like a crazy person, I know. I just never knew I didn’t have that long. I never heard the tick-tock.

If we all knew—if there was some fortune cookie you could open and find out what your allotted time was—would we all live entirely different lives? Would we waste less time? ‘Carpe” the ‘diem’ more. Really?

I daresay I’d still have felt like I was going to strangle you if I didn’t get away for an hour. I wouldn’t have home schooled you. (God knows you wouldn’t have a maths qualification between you if I had’ve done.)

But I’d have played in the playground more. Swung, climbed, hung. Instead of hogging the bench and reading the paper.

Could I have loved you better? Maybe. If that’s true, then I’m sorry. Could I have loved you more? I don’t think it’s possible.”

If there was some fortune cookie you could open and find out what your allotted time was—would you live your life differently?


Would you create a "Bucket List?" If yes, what would be on it?

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to return,' you will become time conscious." ~ A. B. Zu Tavern