Limited by the fact you are in a desert

There definitely is a past which has happened and is not happening right now, and a future that has not happened yet and is not happening right now, and a present which is happening now.

There is both a flow with the arrow of time but the past does not give the present, it only provides the environment for the present. You could say it is not deterministic but probabilistic.

Things that happened had impacts, but those impacts do not force the present to be nor control our choices. Although it may limit the available options. For example if you walked into a desert in the past, your options in the present are limited by the fact you are in a desert.

What happens now and the choices we make now will become the environment for the future but again does not give nor control it. There is no guarantee that anything we do now will change the environment of our future.

Every moment is a fresh beginning inside a given environment that can change. Regardless we can only act in the now, as far as we can show.