You may not get to choose the moment you’re in—but you always get to choose how you meet it.
“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ~ J.R.R Tolkien
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. All we truly possess is this moment—flawed, inconvenient, unfinished as it may be.
The present moment is rarely what we ordered. The circumstances may be uncomfortable. The people around us may not be the ones we hoped for. And yet, life doesn’t pause until conditions improve. It asks us to respond now.
Imagine you haven’t eaten in three days. A stranger offers you a plate of cooked cockroaches and grasshoppers. In another context, you would recoil. You would refuse without hesitation. But hunger changes perspective. Survival reframes values. What once felt unacceptable suddenly becomes an opportunity—and you accept it gratefully.
The moment didn’t change. You did.
This is how the present works. When we approach it with rigid expectations, it feels limiting. When we approach it as opportunity prospectors—searching not for comfort but for possibility—it begins to surprise us.
Being present is difficult when our attention is consumed by ourselves: our disappointments, our fears, our unmet desires. But something shifts when we turn outward. When we ask, What is this moment inviting me to learn, to give, to endure, or to become?
In that shift, the present moment lights up. Not because it became easier—but because we chose to engage with it fully.
Question for Readers
When has a difficult moment in your life revealed an unexpected opportunity—one you only recognized in hindsight?
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