What if the only moment we could ever experience was the eternal moment of now; would we worry less and create more?
Michael K. Hirshorne
It’s a question worth sitting with, because the past is memory and the future is imagination — but now is the only place life actually happens. Everything I’ve ever built, healed, or become happened in a now. And everything I will ever create must happen there too.
The Past Is Not a Blueprint
I was taught to build my future from my history — from what worked before, from what hurt before, from patterns I’d already lived. But the past is finished. It has no creative power left except the power I keep loaning it. The only real building material I have is this moment, charged with conscious thought and feeling.
That’s the deeper teaching: thought alone is potential. Thought plus feeling becomes substance. Here’s how I consciously choose what to create:
I imbue the thought with gratitude “in advance” for that which I choose to manifest into form, as if it has already occurred.
Gratitude offered before the fact isn’t wishful thinking — it’s a declaration that the outcome is already real in the unseen, waiting to catch up in form.
When a Door Closes, Something Better Opens
It’s easy to believe in the eternal now when things go my way. The real test is when a path closes. Here’s what happened to me:
Sometimes when a door shuts — when I’m blocked from going down a particular path — a window opens that allows me to manifest something even better than I imagined for myself. I got my community health worker certification, thinking that this field is where I needed “to be.” Each interview led me back to my previous position as an administrator — working for a gastroenterology clinic. It turned out that the administrator position was exactly where I needed to be to do the most good, and make the most impact.
That’s the eternal now in action: not forcing yesterday’s plan onto today’s reality, but staying open to what this moment is actually offering.
Three Nudges Before the Fall
If you feel stuck in old patterns, there’s usually a warning system trying to redirect you before you get hurt. I’ve come to recognize it in three stages:
- The tap — a small, easy-to-ignore signal.
- The shake — a firmer, harder-to-dismiss push.
- Being knocked down — the lesson you can no longer avoid.
My advice is direct: take it from me — listen to the tap or the shake. Being knocked to the ground… HURTS!!!
“You can’t create your future from your past; only from your eternal moment of now.”
– Michael K. Hirshorne
Living the Practice
To create from the now rather than repeat the past:
- Notice the tap before it becomes a shake.
- Attach gratitude to what you want, as though it’s already arrived.
- Trust that a closed door may be redirecting you toward greater impact, not away from it.
The past can inform me. But only the now can create. I choose my thoughts, feel them fully, and let this moment do what only it can do — birth something new.
The past is history, and the future is a mystery; all we can ever experience is the eternal moment of now.
