AugurEyeExpress November 4 2013

Back when I was just a schoolboy, my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Sampson hung the classroom clock on the back wall, so as not to distract us from her lesson plan. It didn’t work, because every kid in that room had the swivel neck, looking over their shoulders to glance the time many times an hour. Before long She added a hand made sign below the clock, in the shape of a bumper sticker. It read: “Time will pass…will You?” We did of course, and along with whatever we gleaned from the teachings; we also acquired a lifelong relationship with time, for better or worse.

For some of us, punctuality is the prime directive while for many it remains an elusive addition to our skill set. For some of us time is a master, for others, a nagging mother-in-law; and some…well they never give time a second thought, they just don’t have the time for it. In 1971, Spiritualist teacher Ram Dass published his seminal work entitled “Be Here Now,” which among many other things, extolled the virtue of living in the present moment. In a very real sense, the present moment in time is all we ever really have. While living in the past may seem attractive because the rent was so much lower back then, it is essentially a coping mechanism used by folks who just cannot handle the pace of modern day life. Conversely, living in the future (daydreaming) may seem like a productive effort, but only the very talented manage to make a decent living at it – for all the rest it remains just another defense mechanism…the eternal hope that the future will be better despite reality showing no signs thereof.