What’s happening now? Whatever it is it’s probably not what you’re thinking about. We’re usually thinking about the things we have to do and what we’re going to do today. Or we’re thinking about something that’s already happened that we are still stuck on and still feeling the emotions from even though it’s over. Or maybe we’re worrying or anxious or excited about something that hasn’t happened yet and may not even happen at all. None of that is what’s happening now.
Part or most of our attention is often directed away from the moment we are living in. Our mind lives in the past that we can’t get back to and the future that is always out of our reach. That seems strange. But it is what it is. If we want to live a more fulfilling life and be more actively engaged in the moment we are experiencing then we have to deal with the fact that, on its own, our mind sucks at staying present. Like Biggie said, “It’s an everyday struggle”.
It’s not just thinking about things we need to do or forgot to do or any of that line of thought that keeps us from giving the current moment our full attention. That’s pretty straightforward and we can realize, sometimes easily, that we’re doing that. Our emotions are trickier. Our emotions can linger and come along with us from one moment to the next. More than that, our emotions can stick with us and linger for years. That’s harder to pull away from.
Somebody cut you off while you were driving to work. You get to work thirty minutes later and start talking to a coworker and you’re telling the story about how somebody cut you off and you’re cursing that person out. But that shit is over! Past tense. Rearview mirror. No longer real. No longer relevant. Move on! But you’re still feeling it so it seems like it’s still happening. It feels like it’s still the present.
But a feeling like that is not the present and we are constantly and easily tricked by our mind with these emotions that bleed from one moment to the next. A few posts ago I wrote about the mantra “don’t take it personally”. It’s just a little something that I say to myself when I need to hear it. When I need to snap out of autopilot and take back control of the steering wheel. Here’s another little thing I unexpectedly said to myself the other day that stuck with me. “That was then, this is now.”
Something happened that annoyed me or made me feel frustrated or whatever. I’m still feeling it even though it’s over. “That was then, this is now”. SNAP. Ok brain, we are moving on and leaving that emotion in the past. I don’t need to keep carrying that emotion along anymore because it’s not doing me any good and it’s creating a filter that I’m seeing the current moment through. It’s like looking through smudged glasses. “That was then, this is now” is a nice little reminder to focus on the moment, let go of the past and clear that filter. Be present in this moment without it being tainted by the emotions I’m still carrying around from a past moment.
That was then, this is now.
The better we get at leaving the past behind us and leaving our emotions that are connected to what has already happened behind us, the better we get at fully living in the moment we are in. To see this moment clearly, we need to be seeing it without the filter of lingering emotions.
P.S. “Now” and time don’t always feel the same to us. It seems to me that when I am more fully awake to the moment I’m in time stretches out somehow. When I look back on the day or the week or whatever, when I’ve been more engaged with those “nows” it still might feel like it went by quickly but it also feels like a lot happened. It feels more packed with memorable moments when I’m really in those moments. Everything about our life is about our perception of it. If we don’t want to feel like our life blew past us then we have to be awake in the moment we are living.