Sunday night I was bored. Really, really bored. I had most of my homework finished for the entire week bored. That is what happens when it gets icy out and I am stranded until further notice.

I figured that watching a movie might be a good way to waste away a couple more hours. I dug through my movie collection and decided that I didn’t really need to watch “Field of Dreams” for the fiftieth time, or any of the other admittedly sappy, happy-ending movies that I own. I hunted down a copy of “A Perfect World,” a movie that I had wanted to see for a while.

At one point in the movie, Kevin Costner’s character asks the child that he is holding hostage if he’s ever ridden in a time machine before. He goes on to point out that the classic car they are riding in is a time machine in the sense that the past is behind them, the future is in front of them and currently they are in the present. Quite the observation for someone who just broke out of jail and is running from the law.

That is something that had never crossed my mind while I was driving down the road (probably a good thing for the other drivers on the same road). Of course my little green car pales in comparison to the one in the movie, but the concept is still the same.

It seems like in the world today most people have their foot pressed firmly on the accelerator. Everyday we are encouraged to set goals for the future, and we begin to count the days until these goals are accomplished. Early in the week we make plans for the weekend; early in the semester we make plans for the next break from classes.

We look forward to the day that we get to wear the cap and gown and graduate. We look forward to having successful careers, getting married and having families. We may even look ahead to the day that we get to retire from our successful careers. As a society, we all too often concentrate on the finished product and give little consideration to the time and effort that went into the preparation.

Of course, for every person who is obsessing over the future, there is someone else who has the brake pushed to the floor and is looking in the rearview mirror, spending time in the past. It is one thing to look over old photographs and fondly recall memories of past vacations or reread letters postmarked from years before, but it is completely another to spend every minute of every day telling oneself that nothing will ever be as good as it was then.

That is quite the depressing scenario for life. If nothing is ever going to be that good again, then it must be very hard to keep driving along.

The future can sometimes glare so brilliantly that we are blinded, and other times our vision is clouded by our memories of the past. In order to focus on today, we must be able to keep these two forces in check. We cannot live without goals, and our lives would be boring if we had no anticipation for the events that the future holds.

Just the same, we cannot afford to forget the events that our rich history holds. When we fail to look at things that have happened before, we are doomed to fail in the same areas. As a society, we can neither afford to concentrate on the future or lounge in the past, no matter how comfortable it may appear.

We must live our lives in the present. If we don’t make the right moves now, we may be in danger of failing at the goals we are spending so much of our time concentrating on. We may also be falling short of past successes if we don’t continue to work everyday to improve our lives and our worlds.

The present has much to offer us. Each day brings with it the chance to begin again. If we don’t pay attention to the things that are happening right at this very moment, we may be missing out on many of the things that make our lives worthwhile. It is often the short conversation, the joke we heard in passing, the good grade that we got on the test that make our lives so interesting and so enjoyable.

As you are driving along, make sure you are looking ahead, but not speeding there too quickly. Remember that it’s good to occasionally look in the rearview, but it isn’t good to keep your concentration there. This will make the roads a whole lot safer, and life a lot more enjoyable for everyone.

Laura Luiken is a sophomore in English from Webster City.