In the familiar town of Lalgudi, where the days moved at their own gentle pace and the Kollidam river never hurried toward the sea, young Krishnan had begun to live mostly in tomorrow. Even while eating his morning idli he worried about the afternoon’s arithmetic test. During the test he already feared the marks that would come next week. When the marks arrived he immediately began planning how to do better in the examination that still lay months away. Hope for future success and fear of future failure walked together like two friends who refused to be separated, and between them they stole the present moment completely.
One evening on the terrace he confessed this restless habit to Uncle Venkatesh.
“Uncle, I am always thinking of what will happen next. The present keeps slipping away while I stare at the future.”
Uncle Venkatesh nodded and opened a volume of Seneca. “The old Roman wrote: ‘Those who worry about the future are failing to profit from the present.’ Much of our pain comes from projecting life forward. That projection breeds fear and anxiety. Instead, why not learn to profit from the day that is actually here?”
He closed the book and continued. “Arnold Bennett once compared us to Italian donkeys. A stick is fixed to their heads with a bundle of hay hanging just in front of their noses. The hay is always a little ahead, never quite reachable. The donkey keeps walking, always hoping to get it, and so spends its whole life in a state of ‘ad interim’—meanwhile—until at last it dies. Many of us live exactly like that donkey. In business and in ordinary life we chase the next quarter, the next year, the next incentive. We sugar-coat it with fine words, but the truth remains: we are still the donkey.”
Krishnan looked thoughtful.
“And Thoreau,” his uncle added gently, “warned that it is a fool’s life if, having come to the end, we realise we have not lived at all. The remedy is simple, though not always easy: take charge of the present.”
The next morning Krishnan decided to try. While walking to school he noticed the light on the neem leaves instead of rehearsing possible questions for the coming test. During the lesson he gave his full attention to the problem on the blackboard rather than imagining the marks it might one day bring. At lunch he tasted the food instead of planning the evening’s cricket practice. Whenever his mind darted forward into hope or fear, he quietly brought it back to what was actually happening.
At first the old habit pulled strongly. The future still waved its bundle of hay. But each time he returned to the present, the day felt fuller and less heavy. The arithmetic test came and went. He did his best in the moment and then left the result alone. The cricket match arrived; he played the ball that was in front of him rather than the one that might come later. Slowly the locked chain of fear and hope began to loosen.
Weeks later he sat again with Uncle Venkatesh as the sky turned deep blue.
“Uncle,” Krishnan said, “I am still tempted to chase the hay that hangs in front of me. But more and more I am learning to stop and eat the grass that is under my feet. When I take charge of the present, the day itself becomes enough. The anxiety grows quieter.”
Uncle Venkatesh smiled. “That is the practical wisdom of Seneca, Bennett, and Thoreau. Refuse to live only in the ‘meanwhile.’ Profit from the hour that is actually given. The donkey may keep chasing, but you need not.”
In the soft dusk of Lalgudi, while many still hurried after next week’s marks, next month’s prizes, and next year’s plans, young Krishnan walked home with a steadier step. He had begun to claim the present moment as his own—neither postponing life nor projecting it anxiously forward. And in that simple daily choice, he discovered that the present, fully lived, was richer than any future hay that forever dangled just out of reach.