Digging deeper - A Psalm of Life and the importance of living in the present

Ryan Holiday (Austin, TX writer) has a new book out called Stillness is the Key. Look for it under a Christmas tree at 3901A Belmont Park Drive soon. That's right, it is almost time for the annual chop down the (biggest) tree at Home Depot and search out the box and bricks and such to make it even taller! Are you ready Kyle and T?

I want all my peeps to read this book if you so choose. One of the first chapters is called 'Become Present'. It is all about learning to live in the present . . .

Thus, the verse from the famous A Psalm of Life (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) poem I referenced in yesterday's Woman Power Wednesday post - 'Lunch with LuLu'.

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, - act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Here's the whole poem. When you have 10 minutes, keep this post nearby and watch this high school teacher, Tim McGee lecturing to his class about this poem. I so wanted to be Tim McGee! (Warning, the video ends abruptly when the bell rings if you make it to the end. I dare you to at least make it to the stanza above. I love everything about his teaching style and delivery.)

A Psalm of Life

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

   Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

   And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

   Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

   And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

   In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

   Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

   We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

   With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

   Learn to labor and to wait.

Longfellow