Now or Never
You should think that every day is the last day for you, so you
have to decide what to do in the very first instant, otherwise
you will not be able to do anything.
I once happened to meet a youth who was intelligent and well educated but who, for some reason, had fallen into the bad habits of smoking and drinking. I advised him to give up these habits. I said: “These habits are ruining your health, and are also slowing your intellectual development. From all points of view, this is a disaster.” I advised him to treat getting rid of these habits as an emergency. After a pause, he replied: “I’ll do it.” I said: “No, you should say, ‘I have done it.’”
In life the principle that works is ‘now or never’. We don’t have any time to lose. Saying ‘I will do it’ is a kind of luxury that we cannot afford. We have not only to take quick decisions, but we must also act upon them at once. You should think that every day is the last day for you, so you have to decide what to do in the very first instant, otherwise you will not be able to do anything. Time is running out fast. Remember the old saying, ‘Time and tide wait for no man.’
I pointed out to the young man that the mind, with its various windows, has enormous capacity. These windows normally open up only in emergencies when a man has to take an urgent decision. For example, if you are suddenly faced with a cobra, you will retreat with great speed. The reason is that the fear of the cobra activates your mind and the result is that some of the windows of your mind, which had remained closed, are immediately thrown open.
Every human mind has this potential, but generally people utilize this capacity of the mind only in moments of extremity. But, a wise man is one who heeds the maxim, ‘There is no time like the present’ and opens up the windows of his mind even in normal circumstances in order to utilize the full capacity of his brain for positive planning. Human beings and animals are both activated by fear. But what differentiates a human being from an animal is that he has the ability to draw upon his latent potential without having to be activated by fear.
