There is something tremendously satisfying about achieving what is thought to be the impossible—the challenging task, the longed-for dominion, the out-of-reach star. Perhaps we look wishfully at these goals and make plans for bringing them into our grasp. Yet so often we fail to carry our intentions through to completion. The pressures of everyday living crowd in upon us, and we find our high intents languishing on the sidelines. Before long the familiar cliché becomes our own lament: "Oh, how I'd like to get this done—this book read, this letter written, this job finished! But I just don't have the time."

How to get out of this net, this time-bind? Individuals as well as colleges and business organizations have concerned themselves with it. One of the most direct and satisfying answers to this question is found in an article by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. She writes, "Success in life depends upon persistent effort, upon the improvement of moments more than upon any other one thing." And she adds, "All successful individuals have become such by hard work; by improving moments before they pass into hours, and hours that other people may occupy in the pursuit of pleasure." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 230;}

The successful use of moments requires alertness and self-discipline. One needs to watch that his opportunities for achievement are not frittered away. Bad habits of delay and procrastination must be put off before they freeze themselves into our days. An old proverb states, "Habits are at first cobwebs, at last cables."

Economy of time is as valuable as economy in any other department of one's experience. The too-long telephone call, the lingering visit, the extended good-byes, are only a few of the ways by which error would rob us of focused work. A failure to follow through as well as a short interest span are other detours lessening our fervor and resulting in frustration and a sense of guilt.

But this parade of time wasters need not defeat us. We can see through and master them by awaking to the fact that God, immediate and unfailing Mind, is the source of all volition and action. Seen in the light of Christian Science, activity is not a personal possession subject to the whims of mortal mind, something held within a time span that can be too fast or too slow, too soon or too late. True activity denotes the ceaseless unfolding of useful ideas within the range of Love's infinite self-containment. Man, as God's manifestation of Himself, dwells in this infinitude and is the radiant evidence that these ideas are alive and going on.

To lift action out of the realm of time is to lift action out of the realm of dawdling and delay. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," ^{II Cor. 6:2;} was one of Paul's rules of accomplishment. A careful analysis of how we identify our moments, how we value and use them, can be helpful. Do we embrace each one with joy as a brand new experience alive with the golden quality of nowness? Then we refuse to let our moments go winging by as mere inconsequentials. They are no longer seen as measurements of time which bring us closer to diminishing returns and death. Instead, each one can tell us something of the eternal now where the healing activity of the Christ is centered. Christ Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." ^{Matt. 4:17;} Think of it! The kingdom here at this moment.

Man is not on a waiting list. He doesn't have to wait for health, for abundance, for understanding. At this very moment God is being Himself right where the lack seems to be. At this very moment God is pouring forth His love and perfection, and the man of His creating is experiencing this good. At this very moment each one in his true being is God's man.

A recognition of these facts begins to release talents and possibilities for the individual that may have lain hidden and unused— aptitudes he has not recognized as his own. A widening sense of selfhood dawns. Persistence, self-discipline, devotion, order, come alive for him as ideas to be loved and lived. He realizes that the use of them expands not only his area of thought but also his area of action. It sharpens his interest in constructive ideas. The belief that he hasn't been able to get started, to get going, falls before this awakened consciousness.

People are prone to indulge sporadic activity. They do what they like and avoid what they don't like. A Christian Scientist I know loves home, loves all that it stands for and typifies. But shortly after her marriage she found that there was a duty about homemaking that she cordially disliked. It was bed making! This, she decided, was a bore. As a consequence, each morning she delayed this necessary task. Sometimes it would be noon before she got at it, sometimes late afternoon. Then one unusually busy day she saw in a new light the value of moments—the folly of wasting them, how the proper use of them could bring her day into orderly accomplishment. She stopped in her tracks of procrastination and said to herself, "How long does it take to make a bed? I've spent a lot of time rationalizing about delay and getting nowhere. Now let's see how much time it really takes to get the job done."

So she dropped everything and went straight to the task, timing herself carefully. In exactly five and a half minutes she had finished the work and done a good job. Five and a half minutes! And yet she had quibbled and fussed each day for weeks over so simple a task. Now she felt a joyous sense of victory. She had done something more than make a bed. She had broken a crippling so-called law that would have lodged her in limbo. To say that one thing can turn us on and another can turn us off is to identify ourselves with the imbalance and vagaries of the carnal mind.

Paul recognized a great truth when he wrote to the Philippians, "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." ^{Phil. 2:13;} Too often during the day there seems to be a gap between the "to will" and the "to do" of Paul's statement. But when we acknowledge God as the source of all action and that man exhibits God's flawless order, the seeming gap can be bridged. We break through the crust of indifference, the wastelands of apathy that delay us, and we begin to move in God's grooves of accomplishment.

But this dominion cannot be achieved from the basis of mortality —considering oneself a mortal who wants to become a better mortal. This would be starting from the low level of a personal self, which cannot evolve beyond the framework of its own limits. The demand is that we awake to the one Being, God, and that we become familiar with and act from the standpoint of our Christly self, that self which is Himself reflected. It is then that we can move out of the range of calendars and clocks. We become masters rather than servants of our days.

The recognition of what a moment truly represents leads one on to see that day is not merely an accumulation of twenty-four time hours. There can be another kind of day, a day that the world calls an impossible—a day wherein, through the fullest use of moments, we can find an extra hour in which to work for ourselves, our church, our community, our world. A twenty-five-hour day!

These words from Mrs. Eddy offer boundless encouragement: "We own no past, no future, we possess only now." Further on she continues, "Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to 'act in the living present.'" ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12.}