Be Here Now

Josh Podoll, A Welcome End to Knowing

Years ago, I was visiting a very dear friend. We had gone through a great deal together and were both at a crossroads facing the opposite direction. He was looking to start a life in the real world. He had found love and was eager to find an avenue through which to express his boundless creativity. I, on the other hand had just quit my job and was apparently on a monk’s trail.

We had not spent much time together in the last couple of years and thus much of our talk was centered around the usual catching up. We had a great deal of love and appreciation for each other and we had found that it was easy to be brutally honest about what we were going through. I of course was busy with matters of the heart and as it turns out, so was he, or so I thought.

That was when he showed me a t-shirt that read: Be Here Now. To be honest I cannot recall a whole lot about the design but I can tell you that those three words seemed to hypnotize me. It was a time when most t-shirts that we saw around Iowa carried a Nike swoosh, so the thought that something meaningful could be found on one was quite an awakening.

Be Here Now. And when I asked him about it he said that it was just that simple. It was a phrase meant to make people consider being in the moment, to awaken them to their lives. It was simple, but that is the beauty of true wisdom… Be Here Now…

So often we forget this… and we remember all kinds of things that we shouldn’t… we bring into this moment things from the past, hopes or fears for the future and we forget that very simple idea, said in those three words. As I have gone on in my life, it seems that the older I get, the more susceptible I am to this. When I first saw that shirt, it made sense, but did not seem so profound. I thought, yeah, I am here now…

Yet today when I think back to that message something inside of me shifts. I am reminded that each moment, as we are living it, is all we have, because we have no idea what the next one will bring.

I dont know at what point it happened… I dont know when I started to care so much about the past or worry so much about the future, but I can recall a time when I lived each moment for what it was. I enjoyed or didn’t based solely on what was happening at that moment, I was not complaining about something in the past or dreading something in the future.

Perhaps it was because I was young and had my father or mother to do that for me. Perhaps it was because I did not feel like I could control a whole lot outside of that afternoon on the playground. But those days, at that time I was always there. And when I think back, it was an absolutely awesome time.

So now, whenever I try to give myself a hard time for something in the past or when I am lost looking towards the future I remind myself, ‘Be Here Now’. There is so much beauty happening at each instant in life, so many miracles that we miss out on if we have our attention in another time, another place.

Now this is something we all know, but just consider this a gentle reminder, in the middle of all of the hustle and bustle of daily life… to just take a moment, every moment and be there, soak it in and enjoy it…

My friend started out with these kind of t-shirt designs… then he went on to design shirts that began to be sold at designer shops… and he met the love of his life, his wife, in one of those. He is a source of inspiration to me every day.

He seems to have listened to his message. Today he has his own fashion line and has been displaying his art at galleries in New York. Josh Podoll is one of my dearest friends and personal heroes. I thank him for inspiring me in more ways than he will ever know.

That afternoon with him was just absolutely awesome and I will treasure it always. Whenever I am down on myself for any of my usually silly reasons I can see him looking at me with his piercing blue eyes, smiling and saying, “Be Here Now”.

Thank you Josh. Many blessings to you and lot’s of love…

Josh Podoll, A Welcome End to Knowing