Have you ever found yourself hassled by all there is to do in a given week or month? As the common adage goes, we’ve been taught we need to ‘live in the present.’
But despite what the mindfulness gurus insist, I find living in the present hard. It’s not that the present is always full of distractions. Sometimes it’s not. It’s that the present is always happening. The present is by definition changeful, slippery, impossible to pin down. It’s like a cloud, with no head or tail. As soon as you try to plant your heels firmly in the now, you find the now has changed to the then – which is why whenever someone chides me to live in the present, I find myself straining, making a hokey attempt to become aware of what’s going on around me.
When we had our first born and were sinking in the quicksands of new parenthood, my wife and I adopted a different motto which we’ve kept to this day: ‘One day at a time’, or ‘Live in the day.’
At first this phrase was just a buoy to hold on to. It was code word for “let’s just make it to bedtime“. But later on it became a heartening reminder not to look too far ahead or overanticipate the challenges of tomorrow. Today’s responsibilities will suffice.
I prefer this because a day is concrete. You can picture a day. You can feel its rhythms. There’s a sunrise and a sunset, there’s meals to eat, hours to work, a time to wake and a time to sleep. And eventually, full days lead to full weeks and full weeks to full months, and so on. Live in the day.
show & tell 