"Living for the moment" is over-rated.

you can't live in the moment and be a conformist.... and most people live in the future. concerned with matters of consequence, trying to own the stars but never loving them. . if we lived in the moment, when we were in school or whatever, and had the desire to go out and pick flowers, we would get up and leave right then. but instead we say "oh, sometime, i'm gonna go pick some flowers", and the next thing we know, it's winter. living in the moment is acting on your strongest impulses as you have them. i don't mean doing something stupid, like trying to do something that takes training and practice without any, but if you lived for now you would start learning immediately. and besides, those impulses usually won't be to do something dangerous that will hurt tomorrow. usually, they're to make you happy. the only reason i can think of to do something that doesnt make you happy is if you expect it to pay off later on, and that's definately thinking of the future more than the present. american culture is weird... it's like the more you can suffer right now, the better, somehow.