Being In The Moment

To be in the moment, fully aware, not trapped in the past of the future, has become a goal of mine.  It’s amazing how much time we spend in the past.  We build our lives around the past.  We doom ourselves to these tiny, enclosed patterns of acting and doing, barely venturing from the chair we sit at the type or the couch where we watch TV.  It’s those habitual patterns that are literally like a prison.  A lot of us intentionally confine ourselves to a small room where we do most of our activity, be that an office or a living room or a bedroom.  How is that not like a prison?  It is a prison made of the past.

To be in the moment means to seek out new experiences and not live in those preconceived mechanical patterns of acting.  It means each day is a mystery, each moment is new, and there is no telling what will happen. 

Consider this, how is it that we are all born babies, totally helpless and with no money.  We undertake to obtain things in the world having no guarantee that we will get anything.  It is only by the grace of others, loved ones that we even survive.  And in our turn we will take on some wealth but it is only to borrow, we can’t keep it and take it with us after death.  So we are born broke, we borrow some money from others, then when we die, we pass it on to someone else.   And none of this is planned in advance.  We simply have faith and hope that we will be capable of obtaining at least the means to survival and in that game we suffer all kinds of tortures and humiliations or for some of us it comes easy.  The point is life is uncertain.  We must not live to plan for the future, but rather in the moment, taking it as it comes, each moment being totally new.

The catch is how do we live in the moment and still get the advantage of planning for the future.  How do we dedicate our mind and feeling to what is happening in the moment and still mechanically plan for the future?  We most often do it the opposite way, spending our minds worrying about the future, about contingencies most of which will not ever even happen.  How do we instead devote our feeling to the moment and still plan for the future without becoming emotionally involved with the planning as we understand that the future is uncertain and why be in fear or misery over things that might not even happen.  And is there not always something in the past of future to worry about?  Could you not always dream up some terror or final reckoning in the future?  Instead we plan for the future but understand that it is uncertain and focus our mind and feeling on the present moment.  This is easier said than done.  How do you do it when you are able to accomplish it?  Say you have a speech to give and you’ve already practiced it and right now there is four hours until the speech.  Can you live those four hours in the moment, as it unfolds, rather than spending it worrying about the speech you have to give?  That is the challenge.  We sometimes accomplish it.  How do we do it when it works out for us?  What do you think?  How do you do it?  Please leave a comment.

DF Seldon

MS, NBCC