What We Can All Learn About Living in the Present

My good friend Sandy Halperin, who has early onset Alzheimer’s was recently honored along with Sanjay Gupta, M.D. with the 2016 Proxmire Award, which recognizes national figures who have “demonstrated leadership and positively impacted public awareness around Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.”

A couple weeks before he accepted the award we had a 35 minute Skype call. In it he expressed concern about what he was going to say. Certainly honored by the award, he knew he needed to be both gracious but also make a statement, while he still could, about how much more was needed to be done in the battle against the disease.

Sandy lives in what he calls “The Precious Present.” It’s a book and a way of life for many with dementia, including Alzheimer’s. But it could be a way of life for all of us if we grasp the nugget of what this tiny book is about. Living in the present. It’s all we got.