With today being the first day of October and with the rush and chaos of the holiday season rapidly approaching, I felt compelled to write about one of life’s simplest concepts yet one we find so incredibly hard to manage…the idea of “today.”

For the most part, we put ourselves on a daily auto-pilot once the alarm clock goes off and we take those first steps out of bed in the morning. From there, we rush to work, wait for the workday to tick-tock away from us as quickly as possible and as soon as we hit send on that last email, we typically find ourselves running to another appointment, children’s sporting event or happy hour. Some of us even continue working into the night as we never  allow ourselves to completely disconnect from our work.

Then finally at the end of it all, we fall into bed so exhausted we can barely breathe only to get up and do it all over again.

Unfortunately while we’ve been so busy making plans with friends and family, plans for the weekend, plans for holidays, plans for vacation and retirement and plans for the future, the one thing we consistently seem to overlook is today.

What we fail to realize is that the 86,400 seconds that have just passed us by are ones we’ll never get back and yet we typically don’t even stop long enough to recognize, honor or be grateful for any of them. We just got on the hamster wheel for what seems like the millionth time and hit go.

I often wonder what would happen if each one of us took a moment to stop and realize just how precious today really is. If we allowed ourselves to sit quietly for a minute and simply be grateful for the here and now. If we actually absorbed the blessing we have before us and became thankful for each “today” we are given.

It would be amazing to see how much more in focus our relationships, work and purpose could become. In what would probably be a first for most of us, we could actually become more aware of our own lives and really be able to tune into who and what is right in front of us and all that we have to celebrate in this present moment.

Now my thoughts are certainly not suggesting that we shouldn’t plan for the holidays, our next vacation or even our retirement years. I’m just offering all of us a gentle reminder to understand that this day may be the last one you are ever given so be sure not to waste one of those precious 86,400 seconds so focused on the future you forget about the blessing of today.

Always live inspiHERed,

Misti