Last month we spoke about using
the vibrancy of our five senses to give us guidance in making positive choices.
Slowing down to pay attention to the world around us through our senses is
about mindfulness, and being in the present moment. In the craziness of the
information age where success is measured by being bigger, better, faster and
more, the cost for many people at the end of each day is a nagging feeling of
discontent and disconnection.
Multi-Tasking Isn’t
It’s easy to see how that
happens: we go through the day at work or school worrying about things at home,
or planning what we’ll do when we get back there. Once we’re home again, we
become preoccupied with thinking about the challenges we’re facing at work or
school.
We download e-mail while having
phone conversations without really paying attention to either, and then wonder
why we often forget what others have told us. We have dinner while watching TV
and so don’t really notice what kind of food – or how much it – we’re eating. After
a while, we’re genuinely surprised when we’ve picked up weight or developed
digestive disorders.
Multi-tasking has become such a
way of life that it’s become a given instead of a skill. The real skill now is
about coming back to mindfulness and appreciation of the present moment;
because, truth be told, that’s all there is.
The
Past and The Future
When we’re living in the past or
focussing on our memories – whether from yesterday or ten years back – we’re
living reactively. Each of those memories was a series of present time
experiences that brought you to where you are now, but each of them is over and
complete. Whether they were good, bad or indifferent the only moment you have
left is the one you’re living right now.
If you take your thoughts and
concerns out into the future and begin to keep your focus there, life becomes
contingent on a range of possibilities – many of which are out of your control
– which may or may not ever happen. The future too will be a series of present
time experiences, but each of them is determined by what you do right now and
the choices and actions you take in this moment.
A
Penny for Your Thoughts
Our energy and attention is like
a bag of golden coins: whatever we’d like to believe, it’s finite. The more
energy and attention we have wrapped up in our past or future, the less we have
available to us to do what we need to do each day: whether that be to make
healthy, balanced life-choices and decisions; to act on your beliefs and
values; or to heal from illness or injury.
The great poet Mary Oliver urges
us to remember that whether or not we live with awareness, the days slip past
and not one moment can ever be retrieved or relived:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious
life?”
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