Choir Notes

Keep Both Feet in Today
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4190

It has been wisely noted that having one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow is a rather unstable position. The best way to face the future, it seems, is to keep both feet in today.

We can’t spend too much time looking back, because too much still lies ahead. And we can’t live only in the future, or we’ll miss out on today’s happiness. We need to live fully in the present and savor every moment, knowing that in the coming years we’ll be longing for the days we have right now. Indeed, the “good ole days” are not in the past; they are right now.

Our ancestors each had their hard days and heartache, we have ours, and our descendants will all have theirs. The process of life is to go forward in the present, with the past behind us and the future ahead of us.

“We do not know when we will be required to leave this mortal existence,” said Thomas S. Monson. “And so [we] ask, ‘What are we doing with today?’ . . . Have we been guilty of declaring, ‘I’ve been thinking about making some course corrections in my life. I plan to take the first step—tomorrow’? With such thinking, tomorrow is forever. Such tomorrows rarely come unless we do something about them today."1

With that in mind, now might be a good time to reevaluate our goals and aspirations, rethink our direction and purpose in life, and refocus our efforts and energy on worthwhile endeavors. The present becomes the past in a moment, so before it does, make the most of it. The future, which is really just the unfolding present, is bright for those who take the time, as the proverb counsels, to “ponder the path of [your] feet."2

1 “May We So Live,” Ensign, Aug. 2008, 7.

2 Proverbs 4:26.