Master Key Experience Week 19: No yesterday. No tomorrow.

For 19 weeks I’ve been saying “Do it now!” 25 times out loud twice a day. It’s part of our practice in the Master Key Experience. It’s amazing what changes that little phrase has brought about. I pause to think whether to do this or that before the other when I hear the now ingrained “Do it now!” and…I do it now. It’s amazing how much this unburdens the mind and spirit. I no longer carry around a mental list of millions of things undone. Gradually the lists of a lifetime are whittling down.

But not until daily reading The Scroll Marked V in Og Mandino’s THE GREATEST SALESMAN IN THE WORLD have I appreciated fully the other context of the word NOW. “I will live this day as if it is my last” is the recurring statement in the scroll. This bring urgency and intensity of purpose to today.

But even more, Og forcefully reminds me that today is not yesterday and that I ought not be focusing on yesterday at all. So I’ve been observing how much of my internal chatter during waking hours is about yesterday. I suspect most of us keep touching back into past memories just as the tongue can’t leave alone a problem tooth. Why spend time in the past, though. This list of his is powerful.

…I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday’s misfortunes, yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad?

Can sand flow upward in the hour glass? Will the sun rise where it sets and set where it rises? Can I relive the errors of yesterday and right them? Can I call back yesterday’s wounds and make them whole? Can I become younger than yesterday? Can I take back the evil that was spoken, the blows that were struck, the pain that was caused? No. Yesterday is buried forever and I will think of it no more.

But he says not to think of tomorrow either! And I’ve been observing how much I do that as well, instead of focusing on today and instead of focusing on NOW with the intensity of my new determination to also “…live this day as if it is my last.”

…Forgetting yesterday neither will I think of tomorrow. Why should I throw now after maybe? Can tomorrow’s sand flow through the glass before today’s? Will the sun rise twice this morning? Can I perform tomorrow’s deeds while standing in today’s path? Can I place tomorrow’s gold in today’s purse? Can tomorrow’s child be born today? Can tomorrow’s death cast its shadow backward and darken today’s joy? Should I concern myself over events which I may never witness? Should I torment myself with problems that may never come to pass? No! Tomorrow lies buried with yesterday, and I will think of it no more.

Og is helping me understand to my depths that “this day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity.” He says

I will avoid with fury the killers of time. Procrastination I will destroy with action; doubt I will bury under faith; fear I will dismember with confidence. Where there are idle mouths I will listen not; where there are idle hands I will linger not; where there are idle bodies I will visit not. Hencefoth I know that to court idleness is to steal food, clothing, and warmth from those I love. I am not a thief. I am a wo/man of love and today is my last chance to prove my love and my greatness.

…The duties of today I shall fulfill today.

So! I will DO IT NOW thinking of now–NOW, in all the richness of that word.