The only time we can love the world is right now because that is the only time we exist. It’s strange to forget that we’re alive right now, but we do forget—a lot.

My mind rehashes past events with great frequency as if I could change the way life unfolded. Learning from our mistakes is difficult but useful. Trying to tweak our past actions to edit outcomes we didn’t enjoy—or ones that could have been just a little better—is living an illusion.

Perhaps our pasts are more redeemable than we believe, but they can only be redeemed in the present not undone or changed. There are no redos, but there is grace. There is moving forward with respect for what has shaped us, compassion for ourselves and others, and humility in the face of our tremendous limitations and equally incredible gifts.

I also attempt to spend a good amount of time in the future with, as yet, no success. I mentally pre-live everything from writing emails to attending dinner parties. Practice improves our abilities and capacity, but I’m not making that complicated dessert before serving it. I’m planning out conversations when the circumstances in which people will gather don’t exist yet. Who knows in what frame of mind we’ll walk through the door or whether we will arrive at all.

We can honor our pasts and live into our futures with wisdom by remaining conscious in the one place where everything comes together—now. If Love is the ongoing creative force in the universe, the present moment is the where and when of infinite potential. We cannot know where we’re going, but we can participate in where we are, in the creative force loving us all into existence.