“People are no longer human beings. We should be called human doings, because we have forgotten simply how to be.” I wish I knew who said that, but whoever it was, it is a pretty apt description of the way a lot of us live.

The alarm clock jolts us out of bed first thing in the morning, and we are off to the races—rushing here and there, attending to this and that. More than once, I have heard someone lament, “There just aren’t enough hours in the day.” But the fact of the matter is that there are just as many hours in a day as there have been since the beginning of time. The problem is not that we have fewer hours … the problem is that we are constantly filling those hours with “doing” instead of “being.”

Back when I was starting out in the ministry, I took a continuing education course on “How to be an Efficient Pastor.” The instructor told us that the key to being efficient is getting organized. “Make a ‘to do’ list,” he said, “and prioritize it each and every day.”

What he neglected to mention (but what I soon discovered) is that the list itself would become self-perpetuating. In other words, finishing the “to do” list is the one thing that you will never be able “to do.” There will always be phone calls that need to be made … emails that need to be sent … projects that need to be completed … and tasks that need to be done.

Is it any wonder that so many of us are burned out, worn down, and frankly, fed up? We keep telling ourselves that “someday” things will get better—someday we will be less busy … less anxious … less worried … less driven. But, unfortunately, we do not yet have “someday” … all we have right now is “this day.”

Jesus seemed to suggest that if we want contentment and peace of mind, then we need to focus on the present. Regardless of what happened yesterday, or what may or may not happen tomorrow, the present moment is the only time any of us have—and more to the point, the only time we have any control over. Worrying about future events does nothing except divert valuable attention away from the here and now. As Mark Twain once observed, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

Perhaps the thing we most need to put at the top of our “to do” list is simply “being”—learning how to take each moment as it comes, and remembering that the reason it is called “the present” is because it is a gift!