Category Archives: remainders

Stop. Just for a second. Don’t think about anything you have to do next. Take a moment to realize and be present, fully, in this moment. Look around you and admire it. Check in with each of your senses and note what they are feeling. Realize that it is the only time that really exists. Every moment that passes is gone. Every one to come has yet to occur. That coming moment (and the one after it and the one after that) are not guaranteed. That is what makes this one so special. This is why we should recognize and appreciate it’s uniqueness.

But here’s the paradox. Each one of the moments before was equally unique. And we were led to it by the moment before that one. This moment is a consequence of the choices we made in all of the last. And no matter how sure you were those choices would lead you here, they just as easily could have led you to a sudden, unexpected, death.

The fact is that from the moment your warm feet hit the cold floor this morning you have ventured into a vast unknown. Anything could have happened. Yet you ventured forth anyway. You took that next step. And every step was a new opportunity to set your path. Every breath a subconscious decision to keep breathing. Every action a choice to do what you have always done or make a change. And, in reality, you had no real knowledge or control of any of it.

So, let’s take some time to celebrate that. Living life takes strength and courage and fearlessness and boldness to face such choices. Perhaps dozens big and small, each moment. Some smart, some crazy, some daring, some predictable. Yet none, do we know for certain, will lead to another. We have only hope that it will, so we choose to keep on despite that fact.

This moment is the only one we have to make the choices that guide the next, when and if it comes. In this moment we can decide to change our life. Or, we can decide to keep it just as it is. But we get to choose. In this moment, and only this moment, we get to choose our own adventure.

Writing is how I choose to contribute to life’s great adventure. If these words help you make the next best choice, please let me know by contributing here.

Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different? | Video on TED.com.

I’ve been long fascinated by the thought that ideas only have value if there is agreement on them. In other words, that it is such agreement that really gives ideas true meaning.

The video is an excellent example of this. How something that has meaning in this country (a street name) does not have meaning in another simply because there is not agreement on the basic idea itself. In this case, that streets should have names.

Another example is the idea, the concept, of money. If you have a dollar and try to exchange it with me for something that is worth a dollar, the only way it can work is if we both agree on the value, the very idea, of what a dollar is worth. Furthermore, that dollars value to me is largely predicated on my faith that I can get someone else to agree to it’s value too. Entire economies have collapsed due to the failure of such agreements.

In order for us to have a discussion on the color of the sky, we first must agree on the name of that color (blue). If I decide that color should be called red, well, we have a fundamental flaw at the premise of our discussion. And if I call it red and everyone else calls it blue then, well, my ideas about the color of the sky will be written off as that of a crazy person. But, if I can convince everyone else to call it red, well, while the color of the sky has not changed the person still calling it blue will be in the wrong and not to be trusted.

The point here is that we must have some patience when discussing ideas. That in order to tackle a big problem or dispute it is important to get to the root of an idea and come to some fundamental agreements and understandings. It could be that the real problem is that we are talking about two different ideas entirely. That, by finding agreement on the idea itself, we may find that figuring out the rest is easy.

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