Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
What These Words Mean
It can hit you in the quiet middle of a regular day: you look up from what you’re doing and realize you’ve been living on autopilot, half-waiting for some cleaner moment to begin. These words lean in close at that exact point, not with drama, but with a steady hand on your shoulder.
“Today you can make your life significant and worthwhile” first points to the plainest fact: the calendar has given you this day, and you have the ability to do something with it. Not tomorrow, not after you “get it together.” Today. Underneath that, there’s a kind of daring tenderness. It suggests your life is not locked into being small or forgettable. Significance here isn’t about strangers applauding. It’s about doing something that aligns with what you respect, something that makes you feel less divided inside.
The phrase “make your life” matters because it puts your hands on the steering wheel. It implies significance is built, chosen, practiced. You shape it by what you say yes to, what you stop tolerating, what you place your attention on. That can sound heavy at first, but it also pulls you out of helplessness. There is a quiet relief in the idea that meaning isn’t only discovered; it’s made.
Then the quote adds “significant and worthwhile,” and that pairing is not accidental. Significant speaks to impact, weight, consequence. Worthwhile speaks to value and honesty: even if no one sees it, it was still worth your time to do. I like this pairing because it refuses the hollow version of success where things look impressive but feel empty.
The second sentence, “The present is yours to do with as you will,” shifts from what you can create to what you already possess. The present is described like something placed in your care, an immediate piece of property you can use. It’s not saying you own the past or can control the future. It’s saying the only workable material you have is the current moment, and it belongs to you in the sense that you get to decide what happens next.
The quote turns on the connector “and,” moving from “Today you can” to “The present is yours” as if to say ability becomes ownership when you step into this moment. That turn tightens the message: it isn’t only encouragement, it’s a claim about agency.
Picture a very ordinary scene: you’re sitting at the kitchen table with your phone face-up, your to-do list smeared across your mind, and the late afternoon light is soft on the countertop. You could scroll, you could pick a fight in your head, you could delay again. Or you could send the one honest message, wash the one dish, open the one document, take the one step that makes you respect yourself a little more. That’s “the present” being used on purpose.
“To do with as you will” can sound almost unlimited, and that’s where these words get both empowering and a little intense. It frames your will as the deciding force, not your mood, not your excuses, not other people’s expectations. It invites you to act from intention: make a choice, then live inside it.
And still, there’s a human nuance the quote doesn’t quite hold. Sometimes you don’t feel significant. Sometimes your will is quiet, tired, or scattered, and the present feels less like a gift and more like a blur.
Even then, the quote offers a small, workable truth: you can treat this moment as yours, even if all you do with it is choose one clean, respectful action. Significance doesn’t have to arrive like a spotlight. It can be built in plain clothes, through the way you use a single day.
What Shaped These Words
Grenville Kleiser is often associated with practical self-improvement writing and public-speaking education, the kind that aims to translate big ideals into daily habit. In that wider tradition, the present moment is treated as the main arena where character is formed. You see it in the emphasis on discipline, choice, and the belief that a person can train their attention toward what matters.
A saying like this fits naturally in a cultural mood that values self-direction: the conviction that you are not only a product of circumstances, but also a maker of your own standards. The tone is brisk but not cold. It doesn’t ask you to wait for permission. It assumes you have enough room, right now, to do something that changes how your life feels from the inside.
These words also echo a common motivational message from the era of classic personal development: make today count, because today is the only time you can actually touch. Whether the quote appears exactly as written in a single source or has been repeated and slightly reshaped over time, its staying power comes from how plainly it speaks to procrastination and regret. It confronts the temptation to postpone meaning and brings it back to the present tense.
About Grenville Kleiser
Grenville Kleiser, a writer and educator often linked with the self-development and public-speaking world, is known for encouraging practical methods for personal effectiveness. His name tends to appear in connection with guidance that is structured, usable, and aimed at everyday readers rather than specialists.
He is remembered for a style that treats improvement as something you practice, not something you wish for. Instead of framing motivation as a rare emotional surge, his approach points toward steady choices: what you do habitually, what you decide to concentrate on, and how you prepare yourself to act with clarity when it matters.
That worldview shows up clearly in this quote. The emphasis on “today” and “the present” reflects a belief that your life is shaped in small, immediate decisions. The focus on making your life “significant and worthwhile” also suggests a moral flavor to ambition: it isn’t just about getting more, but about living in a way you can stand behind.
When you read Kleiser in this light, the quote becomes less of a booming declaration and more of a daily prompt: treat the current moment like real material, and shape it into something you consider valuable.