In The Present, Dr. Johnson has taken The Precious Present and packaged more of a story around the simple tale of an older man helping a younger one to recapture the joy of losing oneself in what one is doing . . . while keeping the choice of one's current perspective in focus. The gift wrapping around the earlier story is to see how one can tell this tale to someone else . . . and help them learn about how to share it with other people. I felt a little like I was reading instructions for how to create a network marketing company for Dr. Johnson's story.

Inexplicably, Dr. Johnson still uses CAPITALS too much for his meditations . . . and has added BOLDING to make the SHOUTING of his text even stronger. I graded the book down one star for moving away from its simple, quiet potential nature.

I recommend you read The Precious Present rather than The Present to learn these important lessons:

Be in the present; learn from the past to do things differently in the present; and envision a better future and act now to create it.

Like many of the fable books, this one has an enormous price per page. I suggest you read it at the library rather than purchasing the book. It won't take you long.

How can you do something you love now that will build a better future for you and those you love?

Well in a very clever way it's about both. The book is very short and written as a story within a story, the inner story being about the interactions between a young man (learning) and an old man (the teacher).

We find out in simple words about the potential of the present, the past and the future in a way that I found to be both helpful and enjoyable. I don't want to spoil the story by giving details here. If you feel the need to change the way you look at your life and respond to events around you, then I commend this to you.

(I have given only 4 stars because of the comparison between price and size - it's a bit pricy for 100 pages of rather large print! Nevertheless, a great read!)

A must read for 2004!