The clock just chimed at 8:30 a.m.

Before I can finish writing one more sentence of this column, another minute will have passed. What’s my point? We live our lives in years counted, not in months or weeks or days or hours or minutes.

As a child I would say, “I can’t wait until I’m 21 years old; then I could do whatever I want.”

As an adult, I’m thinking of what I have to do for the rest of today, tomorrow and next week.

By now, you understand.

Although I am writing this column, my mind isn’t completely here. It’s somewhere else.

I am not minding the moment.

You go to a baseball game and you want to relax and concentrate only on what you see in front of you, and yet, you find yourself talking to your friend who sits next to you and asks about your kids, your health and then of course, talks about what he has to do after the game. Then you look up at the scoreboard and say, “It says there are two outs. I thought there was only one. How did I miss that?”

No matter what we are doing, our minds are often not there. I walk into the basement to get something. As I’m walking down the stairs, I’m thinking of an appointment I have in Bethlehem tomorrow morning. I get to the bottom of the stairs and I say, “What did I come down here for?”

You have a bad day at work. You argued with your boss. On the drive home, you nearly hit a pedestrian.

You get home and your daughter greets you at the door and she’s all excited. She was selected to play on her school’s basketball team. She begins to tell you about the tryout. Your brain is still stuck on the argument you had with your boss and nearly killing the pedestrian. All you can do is smile at your daughter and say, “That’s nice, honey,” and you walk right past her and she says, ”Dad, I wasn’t finished telling you how I made the team.”

Think about all the moments missed, the times we went to a happy event, the experiences we just didn’t enjoy because our minds didn’t come along with our bodies. We were never really there.

Minding the moment allows us to enjoy the minutes of our lives. No one enjoys an entire year. Days and weeks and months can be filled with health issues, relationship conflicts, job problems, and many more disturbances. While we carry our troubles with us, we are missing out on experiences and opportunities to live a happy life.

Some people get it right. A good friend of mine had a series of financial misfortunes that left his marriage teetering on the edge of a cliff. He was a baseball coach of a youth team. One night just before he was to leave for practice, his wife told him to forget everything and have fun with the kids.

He did. For the next few hours he absorbed himself with his players.

“I learned that night that I had to stop missing out on good times because of all my worries,” he told me. “Obviously my problems were all still there, but I changed my attitude. I became more positive. Looking at the bright side, I was able to get back on my feet and save my marriage and it all started with a simple baseball practice and a bunch of great kids.”

Mindfulness has been described as bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis.

Buddha had it right when he preached that the simple joys are experienced when we keep our focus on the moment. A meal is delicious if we savor the taste of the food. Receiving a hug or a kiss is meaningful if we heighten our senses to the brief contact we make with the other person.

English singer and songwriter Louis Tomlinson said, “Live life for the moment because everything else is uncertain!”

Roman Catholic nun Corita Kent wrote, “Love the moment and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.”

American actress Grace Gealey said, ”We may not know what each day has in store for us. We could be gone tomorrow. Any minute could truly be our goodbye. But we do have this moment. This time. Today. Right now. It takes way more effort to shell out hate than it does to allow love to flow freely in our lives. After all, it’s what we were born to do.”

Forget the past and don’t worry about the future. Feel a moment today as if you are catching a snowflake. Enjoy a beautiful experience that will soon be gone forever.

Then go and catch another snowflake.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.