life with more cowbell

These roses under my window make no reference
to former roses or to better ones; they are
for what they are; they exist with God
today. There is no time to them. There is
simply the rose; it is perfect in every
moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud
has burst, its whole life acts; in the
full-blown flower there is no more; in
the leafless root there is no less.

Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies
nature, in all moments alike. There is
no time to it. But man postpones or
remembers; he does not live in the present,
but with reverted eye laments the past,
or, heedless of the riches that surround
him, stands tiptoe to foresee the future.
He cannot be happy and strong until he
too lives with nature in the
present, above time.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance