Five-minute writes, Day 2, "GIFT"

At my age, I am told it's time I start to regard each moment of life as a gift.  This makes sense, of course, in a logical way. Clearly each moment IS a gift - I could get hit by a bus just any minute. Especially here in the college town in which I live.

However, much more difficult for me is to actually live in each moment. I've taken a little meditation instruction and found the relaxation part to be quite wonderful. I've even succeeded in at least calming my mind, if not quite getting it quite to the still stage.  But there's always so much to do.

I have come to the conclusion that a very real joy in my life is that feeling of puzzling over a problem and working out a solution. Whether it's just a Sudoku puzzle or a complicated piece of grant writing, that solution piece is where I truly get out of my selfish mind and into whatever passes for creativity in my brain.

I actually am comfortable with this. I try very hard not to worry too much about the distant future, and I certainly avoid dwelling on the past, so this problem-by-problem rhythm of my days is about as "living in the moment" as I'm going to get.

Here's where the gift comes in:  My mind still works. My reasoning is still relatively sharp. And I'm still thrilled when I get the "right" answer.