“A certain rich man was accustomed to honor a sufi
by giving him pieces of silver.

‘Would you like one piece of silver now,
O Lord of my Spirit, or three at breakfast
tomorrow morning?’

The sufi answered,
‘I love the half a coin that I have already in my hand
from yesterday more than the promise of a whole one
today, or the promise of a hundred tomorrow.
A sufi is the child of this moment.’”

—Rumi, The Long String, from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, 1995.