Living in the moment is now a cliché. I am sure you have heard it many times.
It came as a piece of good news to me. I figured that all I need to is to live in the moment. If I can do that, life just becomes a matter of being present.
So, I started to actively practice and wanted to see how it feels in my day-to-day life.
As I started my practice, I started noticing something interesting.
Depending on the stimulation and the situation, I had involuntary reactions and thoughts, and urges. These thoughts, in turn, were resulting in emotional responses.
I realized that I was completely unaware of my own mental emotional and physical states of mine. Just being aware was a major first step.
Here are some of the events and my internal reactions/response: –
- One day, I was talking to a customer service agent at my home warranty company. They actually paid me much less than what they said they would pay. The representative on the other side – was unfriendly – talking like a robot. She refused to listen to my side of the story and dismissed me saying it was a company policy. I was pissed and angry.
- I take my dog for a walk in the morning. It makes my morning schedule really tight. I would be late for my office some days. On rainy days the whole process gets worse. It was almost like drudgery and I felt I had no choice. That is the price – I figured, I have to pay for having a dog.
- One day in a parking lot – I parked my new car in a relatively empty corner of a parking lot. As I was coming out of the store – I saw a trolley leaning against the front door. I was exasperated and I could kill the man who did not put the trolley properly.
It became clear to me that just staying in the present is not enough. I needed to find a way to manage how I responded to those moments.
One of the things Henry David Thoreau said was something like this: –
What is worry if we are not thinking about it…
This really made me look at my own life and check the way I think.
Since my emotions arise from the thought that I have (in addition to my own unconscious conditioning and bias), I needed to find a way to find the thoughts that were right for me every moment.
Here are some of the strategies I followed to manage my own thoughts.
- I am not the center of the universe
This world is not about me or not revolving around me. This world is not for my entertainment or my happiness. Each and every life is part of the same cosmic existence.
Whenever I took the time to understand a person or tried to understand a man’s background and context, I could make sense of his behavior. I might be upset. But everyone has his/ her own reason.
At that time – the rude customer service agent – is someone – who is trying to do her job. Maybe she is having a bad day. She is just trying to be happy and was on her own heroic journey. She also had her pain and frustration challenges.
This paradigm has transformed my interaction with the world. It has inspired me to keep in mind what Abraham Lincoln said.
“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better”.
Trying to take some time to understand a person on the other side – helps us appreciate them more. They become a human beings and not just a customer service agent
- Anchoring myself to my goal in life.
For me giving and serving is something I really want to do. It is deeply satisfying to be able to make someone happy.
I try to remember my goal and look for opportunities to look at everything from that perspective.
So when I now walk my dog – I feel good that I can look at him as another expression of life. He is not just a dog, but rather he is part of life being nurtured in my custody.
I felt that he spends his whole day inside the house. His walk with me is the only time he can enjoy and interact with nature. It gives me great pleasure to watch him enjoy his time in nature. So I don’t walk my dog – I go on a walk with him.
- Acceptance
I need to accept the fact –that things will not go the way I want. There are things we will not be able to control. We can fret as much as we want – but it will happen. Accepting this, I figured that my car can be damaged by causes outside of my control. So now my thought is to try to prevent such occurrences. If it happens, I will have to find a way to do it.
For me living now is very simple – Be in the present and have the right thought.
