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Live in the Moment? How?

You are human and you think about the future. The future is a mystery that is scary. We are wired for danger. We are born for stress. It’s how we survived as a species. Now it seems to be killing some of us.

 

People tell you to live in the moment. What does that mean? Of course you live in the moment. The moment is the life. You also consider the next moment. That way you have food. And a roof. Or at least a raincoat. You learned about that because of the past.

 

There is so much to consider in a microwave  life where every moment presents an opportunity to slide into sloth.  I mean, you don’t consider consequences but live in the moment.  A pint of ice cream and a bag of chips seemed like a good idea in that moment. So did the next drink or the trip home with a stranger. There is that too but is that what the new age pundits are recommending? Before you beat yourself up for succumbing to what seems the less enlightened version of be here now,  consider that there is no such thing as the present because you are a compound of past present and future happening all at once always. You can’t live in just one of those things because they are not separate. What you can do is manage your reactions by observing them. Managing your reactions may result in better choices. It’s all about observation and ironically desire to be free of desire or a victim of your past.

 

You are frustrated by your frantic mind. You think you can’t shut it off to be present. And you can’t.

But you can override it with a constant that takes your attention. Ironically, again, that attention is attention. It can be anything that absorbs you wholly and if you cannot be wholly absorbed you can bring your breathing to the front of your mind. Without rush or pause you are breathing. At the top of each inhalation there is a natural pause as the breath turns downward. At the bottom there is a natural pause as the breath turns upward.  You can move, you can paint, you can even write as you do this.

 

Here all the moments of your life become focused on one task and then they are one. One moment.