It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

Bishop compresses a familiar moral insight into a set of paradoxes: we can only act in the present, yet our minds habitually flee into anticipation or regret. Calling it “ridiculous” to live in the future mocks the illusion of control that planning and worry can create; calling it “impossible” to live in the past underscores that memory is not recoverable reality. The final line—“Nothing is as far away as one minute ago”—sharpens the point by showing how instantly the present becomes irretrievable. The quote functions as a warning against nostalgia and anxiety, and as an argument for attentiveness: meaning and agency exist only in the continually vanishing “now.”