Moments

"It is the sense in every moment, that excitements fade, that everything moves on, that even the epiphanies and discoveries that seemed so exhilarating yesterday will soon be forgotten as the world flows on. You can't hold on to anything." -Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard-

Memories are moments, moments are fragments of time, and time is fleeting.

The joy you experience today may decline into a strange sense of void the next day. It's really hard to hang on to the best moments in life. Even pictures and videos - the most powerful tools to capture special moments - fail to bring back the exact emotions you felt at the time the photo/video was taken. You may experience a slight tinge of happiness or nostalgia, but you won't feel the excitement from blowing off the candles on your 12th birthday, or the adrenaline rush when you passed your driver's test.

This is exactly why people say, "Cherish the good times." It's like a tape on replay; reminding you to constantly live in the present and enjoy the good moments because "good moments are hard to come by."

But no matter how hard we try to hold on to a good moment, it always manages to slip right out of our grip as time passes. Just as quickly as it happened, the moment fades into a memory, pocketed in our mind to be retrieved for future flashbacks.

Maybe it's true that we can't really hold on to anything. And maybe it's true that excitements fade as we endure new things. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy life to its fullest. It doesn't reduce us the ability to be happy, to be proud of ourselves, to honestly announce that we've lived a productive, blessed life. And if you think about it, time carries the weight of a new adventure beneath its wings, just waiting to be experienced.
So when one moment passes, another one is on its way. :)

Be ready.