Forever
Right Here, Right Now Jack, David, and Beth all have eternity amnesia. They are liv- ing as if this life is all there is. If this is all the life we have, then the name of the game is this: experience, possess, and accomplish everything we can, right here, right now, because this is all there is. The old beer commercial captured it powerfully: “You only go around once in life, so you’ve got to grab for all the gusto you can.” If you’re not moving toward a glory so glorious that it will over- whelm the pain of anything you suffer, then this is all the glory you will ever get. Don’t sit on the sidelines. Don’t find reasons to say no. Pack everything you can into this moment, because this moment is all you are ever going to have. Jack, David, and Beth are not alone. Hundreds and thousands of the people around them are doing the same thing — loading all their hopes and dreams into this present moment. Eternity amnesia makes present pleasures more magnetic and seductive and present difficulties more painful and disappointing, so we obsessively work to experience the good thing and, in anxiety, do everything we can to avoid the bad thing. This way of living makes us crazy in ways we may not be able to recognize. Think of Jack. His life plan can’t work, because a person sim- ply cannot continue to spend more than he makes. And he cannot be successful for long at robbing one account to finance the needs of another. But Jack’s problem isn’t really financial. He has a for- ever problem. He is so driven to fix his own story right here and right now that he has gotten himself into a mess that he probably won’t be able to get himself out of. At street level, Jack is a man without eternity. All he knows to do is dig deeper and work harder and hope that the “good life” that he has cobbled together won’t suddenly crumble at his feet. Jack thinks that he is offering his family the “good life,” but it isn’t that good after all. As a husband, he is tense and uptight, ready to argue over every penny Jen wants to spend. As a dad, he is seldom at home because he is working constantly to stay ahead of
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