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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://expound.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/the-value-of-now-768x1024.jpg" alt="The Value of Now" class="wp-image-99705"/></figure>
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<h2>Achieving your goals one now at a time</h2>
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<p>“Now” is not only the only link between the past and the future, the previous moment and next, but between your life trajectory, your plans and their unfolding. I can not emphasize this point enough. </p>
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<p>“Now” is the only link between ambition and accomplishment. This fact and consideration alone will turn our concept of “now” right on its head.</p>
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<p>Let’s illustrate the point more.<br>
Look at your life in general, look at the plans you have, look at your goals, nothing in the immediate or distant future, nothing remote (in time or process) will be accessible if “Now” fails. </p>
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<p>The assignment that is due tomorrow will not be submitted if “now” is not handled appropriately and that may derail your entire academic goal. If you miss work today or now, your employment status is compromised at best or jeopardized at worst. If “now” goes South, tomorrow (if it comes to you) can be a whole new ball game.</p>
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<p>The lofty ambitions and aspirations some of which we are already working on: are not accessible outside an appropriate and fruitful handling of “now”. </p>
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<h2>There is a time for everything</h2>
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<p>The reason people fail to achieve long term goals or any goals in the long run, is that “now” looks unimportant, the value of now is hardly appreciated. Right “now” someone thinks that how they should handle “now” is optional. They could either get on to that important task as planned or they can rather tune up some movie on Netflix and shelve the important task for later. Now seems to have a plurality of options with regards to how it can be handled. However every purposeful individual bent on achieving set goals knows clearly that the principle of acing “now” is not optional. In the ecosystem of life there are no options really. There is time for everything and time to work is time for just one thing: to work! Time for play is time for just one thing: to play.</p>
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<p>“Now” is often despised as an unimportant passing moment whose mishandling can be easily corrected in the next moment. This is a big lie we tell ourselves. As a matter of fact there is no optimal access to later, or tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or any other lofty life milestone outside the efficacious handling of “NOW”. The many nows we have misused and many we have been lent have a fleeting influence that makes us think there will always be “next time”. Not true.</p>
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<p>Between the gone and the coming “Now” is the only way forward, to a non guaranteed forward.</p>
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<p>The foregoing is what gives context to, “To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts.” Hebrews 11:7</p>
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<h2>Now is the only door to the next step in the ladder of life. </h2>
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<p>Top achievers will tell you that the key is not to focus on the overwhelming lofty end product but on the process. Do  you know what focusing on the process entails? It entails handling your series of nows productively.</p>
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<p>A life of failure is in essence a series of mishandled nows. </p>
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<p>Keep wasting one now after another, (through idleness, slothfulness or busywork) before you know it the misused nows will add up to wasted moments, hours, days, weeks, months and years. They amount to a wasted life. It will dawn then that just like success in life is not an accident, neither is failure. </p>
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<p>You are where you are today, right now according to how you thought, what you decided and what you did in your timeline’s old “nows”. </p>
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<p>Right now, in this seemingly negligible moment of time called now, a great legacy is either being born or built or being aborted. Right now the obituary to be read at your funeral (perhaps many years from now) is being scripted silently. Right now your future is being formed and decided by you. </p>
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<p>Take note, success will be a net outcome of a whooping series of aced nows, however don’t be overwhelmed by countless units of nows, right now you only have one now to deal with and this will always be the rhythm of your life. One now at a time.</p>
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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Psalm 90: 12<br>  So teach us to number our days,<br>  That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.</strong></p></blockquote>
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<p>Note, David’s prayer is that we learn to number our days, not to count then. So the point is not about the collective quantifying of the days but progressive living. Counting would imply mere quantifying while numbering implies progression. In other words day 1 lays the foundation for day 2, and day 2 lays the foundation for day 3 and so forth. <br>
Numbering our days means that our lives are closed systems as opposed to open ended systems. A closed system has an A to Z structure. <br>
The tragedy of life is when you are on day 8 and days 1 to 7 have not been handled productively. i.e. You will struggle with mid life if childhood affairs were not handled appropriately. You will struggle in your life’s sunset years if mid life is not handled appropriately. </p>
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<p>In numbering our days we ought to understand that opportunities, challenges and dynamics of day 2 presuppose the dutiful handling of day 1. Day 1 capacitates us for day 2 challenges and opportunities. The operative of life is cumulative and progressive. The idea is that age must come with maturity, wisdom, independence and stability. When age comes strolling alone the sight must be an eyesore to the engineer of life.</p>
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<p>An individual at 40 still grappling with adolescent challenges and opportunities is the travesty of life on two legs.</p>
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<h2>The value of now is invaluable</h2>
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<p>Thus, the value of now is invaluable, its importance is incalculable. An appropriate and dutiful handling of now not only secures the meaning of life at present, but lays the foundation while giving direction and perspective to the series of prospective nows, whose succession is the unitary unfolding of the future. </p>
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<p>Now has no intrinsic value, it doesn’t come with a truckload of goodies, it has nothing else to offer beyond the mere value of access to it. The value of now derives from our investment of it rather than investing in it. Invest now, don’t just expend it. It is too short-lived and transient in any case and the only means of drawing maximum profit from it is investing it as opposed to investing in it.
<strong> The only to invest now is to derive permanence out of its transience (temporariness). </strong>
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<p>Keep in mind that investing now and handling now productively do not imply the absence of failure. We may fail at one point or the other, but the object is to do our best to achieve set objectives. Remember this, God has NOT asked us to be successful, He has asked us to be faithful.</p>
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