"The good old days?"

I watched several episodes of the television show The Office over Memorial Day Weekend, because Comedy Central was running a marathon event of all the episodes.  As a result, I've already posted a couple of times in the last week using themes from the show.  During the final episode, the character Andy Bernard (played by the actor Ed Helms) says, "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them" (here's a video clip from the episode).  It's an amazing quote from a troubled character, who actually had left his job as office manager to go try to fulfill his dream of being a television star.  

While I am sure everyone would interpret the meaning of this quote in their own way, to me it says that we should absolutely focus on the present.  We should try to find happiness today, instead of waiting for the happiness to come tomorrow.  I am reminded of a quote by the author Ernest Hemingway (I think it comes from his novel, For Whom The Bell Tolls), "Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be.  But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today."  

Or the Dalai Lama, who said, "There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done.  One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live."  

Or the following quote, which former Cubs player Carlos Pena posted on the wall of the team's clubhouse during a particularly difficult stretch a few years ago, "You can't see the rising sun if your eyes are fixed on the setting one.  Yesterday is history.  Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift.  That's why it's called the present.  Conquer the now."

Conquer the now.  Live for the present moment.  What you do today - how you live today - matters.  Above all else, today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live...