This is living now.

Have you ever found yourself cursing the waste of time that comes from waiting in a queue? Have you ever found yourself looking for faster and faster ways of getting things done? I have. I used to pride myself in finding the most efficient way of doing things. If I could type an email and answer the phone while the kettle was boiling and the computer was working in the background, I pretty much thought I was being super efficient.

But in being super efficient I would find myself lying in bed at the end of the day asking what happened? Usually it was at the end of the week because the days flew by so fast and were so busy that I hardly noticed the interruptions of sleep.

What happened? How was this day any different than all the others that stretched before it? And in the confusion of speeding through my days and my to-do list I lost track of my thoughts. My mind was constantly racing. Constantly projecting different scenarios and out-comes. Constantly reviewing past events and replaying different ways they could have happened. In short I was either living in the past, with memories of what had happened, or in the future, with plans of what would happen. The present moment for me was just a waiting room in anticipation of future events. A thing to endure in my race to some perceived goal always tomorrow.

This contempt for the present moment lay like a fog over the events that happened in it. Nothing was ever clear or wholly enjoyable in its own right. Everything was just a means to an end. And life had lost its magic.

Do you remember how you felt as a child?

You could play for hours not noticing the time until it was getting dark and your mother was calling you in for supper. When I was young we lived in a village and our house bordered the cane fields that stretched over the hill. Some builders had dumped a pile of stones next to us for a house they were building and I had found an old piece of metal. I remember spending hours on that pile hitting stone after stone off into the cane fields. Being thrilled when I nailed a stone and it flew for miles. Such a small thing, and yet such a profound memory for me.

Why was it such a profound memory? Because at that time I was doing what all children are able to do, I was in the moment. I wasn’t preoccupied with what had happened before nor was I worrying what would happen in the future. I was simply there. But along the lines of living I lost that simplicity. I got caught up in better, faster, harder, quicker, more. I love the line that the media uses for this. Work hard, Play Harder.

Across the world people are awaking to the fact that faster is not always better. Multitasking is not the most efficient way to get things done. The occurrence of depression from work related stress and burnout already costs the UK government 20 million pounds a year. And what do we get for all this better, faster, harder? A fog of doing that obscures the only true experience of being.

How do we recapture the experience of being? What can we do to get it? And the truth is you can’t do anything. You can only be by allowing yourself to be in the moment. This means to give your whole attention to the specific thing that you are engaged with at all times.
The easiest way to focus on the present moment and not get caught up with past ideas of what should happen or future imaginings of where it could lead is to practice acceptance of what is. There is a great story that illustrates this type of mindset.

A wise man won a sports car in a competition. When his friends heard they all proclaimed how lucky he was. “Isn’t this great!”. To which he would reply, “Maybe.”

He drove his new sports car around enjoying it for a few weeks and then one day a reckless driver jumped a red light and smashed into him. Waking up in hospital the wise man found all his friends surrounding him all lamenting his fate. “Your new car is totaled and you’re lying in hospital with a broken leg. What a horrible thing to happen.” To which he again replied, “Maybe.”
That night as he was in hospital a torrential storm hit and his house was crushed under a landslide. When his friends found out they all marveled at his luck. “Aren’t you lucky that you were in hospital that night otherwise you would have been killed in the landslide?” To which again the wise man replied, “Maybe.”

So to recapture the simple joy of being; be present, release judgment and slow down. This is living now.