After all, you’re the ones who will eventually assign a value to them anyhow. Why not get a head start, and just rate them all now. It will help take away the suspense of having to live them. You can even use your past moments on earth as an indicator as to how they may go. It works like that, doesn’t it? Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have given up drinking coffee for the semester.

OK, so the moments you “spend” here at MSU will eventually be valued anywhere on the continuum from challenging to rewarding. Some may seem to last forever while others will be gone in a blink.

The challenge for you is not so much about the meaning you may assign to these moments as it is about how to stay present in them. I can’t tell you the number of students who have said to me at the end of their college career that they “can’t believe that it is over, where did it go.”

I especially like those who say that they now must enter “the real world.” I sometimes wonder if these folks were ever really present, and if they were, did they really believe that this was the “unreal” world?

On the flip side, there is not a day that goes by that I do not hear one of my fellow faculty or staff colleagues utter one of the following semantic, devaluing-of-the-moment statements: “I can’t wait until Friday,” or “Boy, tomorrow is going to suck.”

I guess my urgency around this issue has increased meaning right now as I am moved by the MSU student Joe Barton, who lost his life in a car accident last week. A student who I am sure had no idea his next moment right before the accident would be his last one in this life on earth.

I am sure he believed he would have many more and looked forward to them. In the eyes and minds of his family, there can be no value in that moment he died. For us, there may be value in that moment only in that it may help us recognize that we are only entitled to the present moment, although we are always allowed to remember the past and hope for a future.

Let me offer you some unsolicited advice from a weary health educator who also struggles to stay in the present.

Do not let a moment languish or be devalued as one that has the sole purpose of bridging you to get to the next one.

Even those moments that you believe are most challenging are important, because they are yours, and once they have passed, so has the opportunity to live and value it.

Once again from the aforementioned book: “There are no ordinary moments.” They all come filled with value and opportunity. You just need to be there to see it.

So what does this have to do with health?

Well, the true measure of health and wellness is not measured by the exercises you do, the vegetables you eat, or the condom you use.

The true measure of health and wellness is measured by your ability to live the moment with clarity, purpose and a sense of value.

Dennis Martell, Ph.D., is a coordinator of Olin Health Education and writes a weekly health column for The State News. E-mail him your questions at dennis.martell@ht.msu.edu.