The two most important words in the English language

However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?
Buddha

If I asked you to name the two most important words in the English language, what would you say? Take a moment and think about it. People have given me many words in answer to this question: love, think, dream, persevere, work, hope, believe, thank you, pray, live, commit and focus. But I have two very specific words in mind.

I’d like you to consider the following words: act now. We can plan, scheme and dream all day long, but unless we act on our plans, nothing happens. I constantly work with people who have great ideas; they make marvelous plans but never get around to making those plans a reality. Their dreams remain dreams.

The second word, now, is the key. You’re probably aware of the concept that now is the only time there is. What happened in the last minute or the last century is the past, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. What happens ten minutes or ten years from now is the future; we have no power there. We can only act now.

Far too many people try to live their lives in the past or the future. When we attempt to live in the past, we’re constantly trying to revise or alter the outcome of something that’s already happened; we want to rewrite history. When we try to live in the future, we’re anticipating and attempting to control future events. Yet those events rarely go the way we expect.

If we really want to improve our lives, we should embrace the wisdom of act now. Action is the only way to achieve the results we want in life, and now is the only time there is. Far too many of us forfeit our possibilities in life by failing to act now. We let the moment pass without doing what we can to advance our goals.

If you learn to act now, you’ll be amazed at the difference it will make in your life.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.
Ralph Waldo Emerson