Living in the Moment

Nobody lives ‘in the moment’ as children do. There is no future or past when they ‘live’ in the moment’. They do it so well that we could learn a thing or two from them. They often meet adult intervention with fierce resistance. Adults enforce the discipline needed to adapt from the ‘in the moment’ experience to the harsh reality shaped by the adult concept of time: a time to play and a time to work, a time to listen and a time to speak and a time to plan and a time to act. The necessary but unhappy growth from living ‘in the moment’ to keeping to a daily schedule is sometimes the reason adults forget how to live in the moment.

The trick would be to keep that childlike ability while adapting to the demands of living for the future, when we go to work or when we re-visit the past as we reminisce or take lessons from history to live a better future. How to do this is the difficulty; to live every moment intensely while keeping an eye out for the daily reality of planning for the future and building a sustainable lifestyle. Adults must re-learn this ability to live intensely in the moment. Developing an ability to focus attention and eliminate distractions can help one do this.

Multi-tasking is all very well but also taxing on the brain if we believe health experts. People who are excellent multi-taskers have given in to modern pressures to achieve at any cost, usually at the cost of personal health. That difficulty ceases if we do what we enjoy in order to enjoy what we do. When you find that what you enjoy clashes with what you are doing its time to re-assess the situation, to see if you are living to your full potential – trying to please two masters ends with pleasing neither.

We expect most mothers to enjoy mothering and child care, but no one said you couldn’t share the load and take time out for yourself to smell the roses. Previous generations saw the extended family helping with child care and getting back to the old ways, may make for happier family-life with fewer parents and children needing therapy to improve relationships. Living in the moment is important to all relationships, even as it may sometimes seem to be self-absorbed. If the great inventors hadn’t done just that, there’d be fewer achievements today. They focused on the project and persevered. Find your passion may have become a cliched phrase but is true none-the-less. We must truly appreciate the moment, as time is really all we have.

This has become of particular interest in this time of COVID-19 pandemic. Our shrinking reality during lockdown measures has re-focused our perception of time and forced us to look at how to make changes that preserve our sanity, as one day merges into another and it blurs time as we lose track. This is definitely not the same as living intensely in the moment where we also lose track of time. Creatives understand the importance of living in the moment while losing track of time. Perhaps we should attempt to develop our creative side more.

A challenge to all finding the pandemic restrictions trying is to find fresh ways to live in the moment and appreciate all the time we have left. Creative ways to make the changes needed when we finally get back to a semblance of normality, is another way we can pass the time of enforced slowdown. An alternative way of living is vital for our own survival on the planet because up to now we have not lived our lives for the benefit of all creation.  The time has arrived to get creative and live in the moment with intense awareness of how to live sustainably for all who inhabit the earth.

The End!