You do indeed have a past, but not now! And, yes, you have a

Host:
The sunset spilled gold across the small mountain lake, its reflection trembling on the rippling water. The air was crisp, carrying the clean scent of pine and the faint, earthy perfume of moss and rain-soaked bark. Somewhere distant, a bird called — slow, haunting — as though reminding the world to breathe.

On the worn wooden dock, two figures sat in silence. Jack, his elbows resting on his knees, stared at the water with the look of someone holding too many unfinished yesterdays. His jaw was set, his grey eyes clouded like smoke. Beside him, Jeeny, cross-legged, calm, barefoot, let her fingers trail over the lake’s surface, disturbing it only slightly.

Between them lay a small open notebook. On its page, written in neat script, were the words:

“You do indeed have a past, but not now! And, yes, you have a future, but not now! You can consume your now with thoughts of 'then' and 'maybe,' but that will keep you from the inner peace you could experience.” — Wayne Dyer

Jeeny: (softly) “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The way he says it. So simple — and yet it dismantles every excuse we ever make.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Simple words don’t make simple truths. You can’t just tell your mind to stop thinking about the past. It doesn’t listen.”

Jeeny: “It listens if you stop shouting at it.”

Jack: “You talk like stillness is easy. It’s not. Some of us don’t get peace — we get echoes.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe the echoes are the path to peace — if you stop running from them.”

Host:
A soft wind moved across the lake, scattering the light into a thousand broken pieces. Jack leaned back, staring at the slow movement of the clouds.

Jack: “You know, Dyer’s idea sounds poetic — ‘live in the now,’ ‘be present,’ all that zen stuff. But real life isn’t that clean. The past is what made us. The future’s what drives us. Without them, who the hell are we?”

Jeeny: “You’re the space between them. That’s who you are.”

Jack: (turning to her) “And what does that even mean?”

Jeeny: “It means you’re not your memories or your fears. You’re the awareness that’s watching both of them pass by.”

Jack: (chuckling dryly) “You sound like a monk who reads self-help books.”

Jeeny: (playfully) “And you sound like a man who hasn’t stopped fighting ghosts.”

Host:
The light shifted, softening into amber. The reflection of the mountains melted into the still water, forming a perfect mirror — past and present touching, neither winning.

Jack: “I’ve tried to live in the moment before. You know what happens? The moment just reminds you of everything you lost.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you’re not in the moment — you’re still inside memory, replaying pain disguised as reflection.”

Jack: “You think it’s that easy to separate them?”

Jeeny: “No. But it’s possible. You can visit the past without moving in. You can plan the future without getting lost in it. Dyer didn’t say forget the past — he said don’t live there.”

Host:
The lake shimmered brighter as a gust of wind passed over it, scattering ripples like fragments of thought breaking free.

Jack: “You make it sound like peace is a decision.”

Jeeny: “It is. Just not a convenient one.”

Jack: “So I can choose peace while my life’s on fire?”

Jeeny: “Especially then.”

Jack: (snorts) “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “Of course. Because inner peace isn’t the absence of pain — it’s the refusal to let pain control your presence.”

Host:
Silence fell again. The sound of water lapping against the dock filled the space — rhythmic, eternal.

Jack reached down, picked up a small pebble, and tossed it into the lake. It skipped once, twice, before sinking beneath the golden surface.

Jack: “You know what I think? The past never really dies. It just changes costume — shows up in new arguments, new faces, new regrets. You can’t kill it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you’re not supposed to. Maybe you’re supposed to make peace with its ghost.”

Jack: (murmuring) “Peace… sounds like surrender.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s acceptance. There’s a difference. Surrender means giving up. Acceptance means letting go.”

Host:
The sun dipped lower, the light now soft and blue, the sky beginning to cool. Jeeny leaned back on her hands, watching the fading glow paint the lake’s surface like brushed silk.

Jeeny: “When I was a kid, my grandmother used to tell me, ‘Every breath is a doorway. You can either walk into the past or step into the now.’ I didn’t get it then. But now I think she meant that peace isn’t something you find — it’s something you remember to allow.”

Jack: “Allow…” (he repeats the word slowly, tasting it) “That’s a hard word for control freaks like me.”

Jeeny: “It’s the hardest word for anyone who confuses control with safety.”

Jack: “And you don’t?”

Jeeny: “I used to. Then life happened. You can only cling to the shore for so long before the river teaches you how to float.”

Host:
Jack laughed quietly — the kind of laugh that carried both exhaustion and awe. The last light of day caught his face, softening the sharp lines carved by years of fight.

Jack: “You really believe people can live without being haunted by what’s behind them?”

Jeeny: “Not without being haunted. But they can learn to listen to the haunting without being consumed by it.”

Jack: “So the ghosts stay, but they stop screaming.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You give them space to whisper, then move on.”

Host:
The lake stilled, almost perfectly flat now — a mirror for the stars beginning to appear. A long pause stretched between them, tender and weighty.

Jack: (quietly) “You know what scares me? That if I stop remembering, I’ll lose who I am.”

Jeeny: “You won’t lose yourself, Jack. You’ll just lose the version of you that’s still suffering.”

Jack: (after a long pause) “And what replaces him?”

Jeeny: “Peace.”

Host:
The first cricket began to sing. The world, so loud before, now seemed wrapped in velvet silence.

Jeeny leaned closer, her voice barely above the water’s hush.

Jeeny: “Dyer wasn’t saying ignore your story. He was saying don’t mistake the book for the author. You’re the awareness writing every page. You’re always here — not then, not later, just now.”

Jack: (looking out at the lake) “So the secret’s to stop reading old chapters while pretending it’s a new day.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Every morning’s a blank page, but most people keep printing yesterday on it.”

Host:
The light faded to deep indigo. The reflection of the stars began to ripple across the lake — a thousand tiny, trembling truths.

Jack exhaled, slow and steady. “Maybe this is what peace looks like — not silence, not emptiness, but just… presence.”

Jeeny: “Yes. It’s the moment you stop arguing with what already is.”

Host:
The air turned cool. The world felt infinite and close all at once.

Jack smiled faintly, for the first time that night. “You know, Jeeny, maybe Dyer was right. The past is just a teacher, the future’s just a rumor. All we really have is this — the breath, the stillness, the sound of water.”

Jeeny: “And each other, for now.”

Host:
They sat there until the stars outnumbered their words, their silence more eloquent than any wisdom.

And in that quiet — suspended between memory and mystery — Wayne Dyer’s words breathed themselves into the scene:

That peace isn’t found by escaping time,
but by entering it completely,
that the present moment is not small — it’s eternal,
and that when you stop clutching at what was and fearing what will be,
you finally remember what it means to be.

Host:
The night deepened. The lake shimmered.

And on the dock — two souls sat still at last,
the world around them dissolving into one perfect truth:
that “now” isn’t a place we visit —
it’s the home we forgot we already live in.