Being fully present in the moment

How many times were we really present in the moment? Most of us aren’t really present. Speaking about myself, there were quite a few occurrences where my brain was focused on something else instead of the present moment. For example, I’ll use something from my sports background. I hated causing any errors; it was hard for me to forgive myself for them. So I used to overemphasize things that had already happened. Notice the part where I focus my thoughts on things that are already done instead of focusing on the present moment.

Apart from sports, the same thing I did in life too. Overthinking about past mistakes and being worried about the future instead of focusing on the present. Of course, now that I have changed my way of thinking and improved myself, I still repeat this behaviour of not focusing on the present, thinking about past mistakes, and overthinking about the future. It is okay. Things take time to change, and I’m glad I’m working on improving myself.

I’m forming the assumption that many of us do the same. We waste our mental energy on the past and future while losing sight of the present, and then we create stress for ourselves.

We are overwhelmed by all the guilt and fear. It’s fine. It is not a crime to overthink, but this surely is bad for our energy, which we spend in the wrong place.

Is there any point to wasting our energy in these wrong places? Hey look, I do understand that we all should learn from our past, for which we need to analyze our past mistakes, and at the same time, we need an order or a plan to deal with our future.

That process is a good thing, as is rational behaviour, but anything extreme in both points is not good in the long run. Is it?

Rectify your mistakes and surely make a plan for your future goals or path, but the most important part is being available in the present moment.

Bothering about what’s more important right now instead of contemplating about what had happened or what is going to happen.

Greg McKeown (writer of essentialism) in his book mentioned a moment with his wife Anna, which I found surely something we all can learn from.

They were having lunch together, and usually at the time of lunch they would discuss their events and activities of the day. Anna suggested during that lunch date that let’s not talk anything today and focus on the moment, and this experiment showed its result soon enough too. Greg found himself completely present in the moment instead of thinking about several things. This sensation stayed with him in the afternoon too. Instead of being distracted by his thoughts, he was fully focused on the present.

What does this simple incident tell us?

Our minds are filled with several thoughts, and we take these thoughts with us everywhere we go. We are not really free from them because we keep overthinking about them. A simple example would be bringing work home. Of course, sometimes it is required in the current modern era, and that is fine too at a certain level, but anything that crosses set boundaries is bad. Like thinking about work while eating. How about just eating peacefully or not focusing on what other people are talking about because you are lost inside your head thinking about your work? That is where we aren’t available in the moment, and we ourselves invite stress to be our forever guest.

“You have several thoughts about your activities for the day, then a random thought of a past mistake comes up, and suddenly you are completely worried about the future”. Writing this specific sentence gave me a visual of someone scratching a blackboard with their nails and bringing out that annoying noise. There is so much noise in this specific sentence, and sadly, it also exists in reality, which gives you a headache.

So focus on one thing at a time. A small brain can’t take too much load while you can keep pretending that, “Oh no, I can do everything. Sure, and then you are the same person, overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed. Focus on Present and what is most important at the moment and stay present with that moment.

It mostly depends on ourselves and how we want to improve our lives, and which methods or ways we want to follow to improve our life. Some continue to do the same thing, while some improve and work on themselves to make their lives better. So it is up to you in the end how you think about it.

There are several things that worry us, and we are unable to think of anything else apart from what is worrying us. In the end, our mind runs through emotions; none of us is a machine that can just pretend to not think and be happily present in the moment. But as I mentioned, it is up to us how we deal with any kind of situation. It is fine to worry, and at the same time, you can take a deep breath and think clearly about what is most important. Is worrying going to make problems any better? Think for yourself.

As you read in the mentioned incident, Anna’s experiment of just sticking with the current moment helped Greg to clear his mind. The same thing can be applied to your own life too.

 I wrote what I wanted. We all should read different thoughts and make our own ways from there. There are several paths to the same destination. You can make your own.

Maybe I should try writing in a better way, so it is more understandable to the reader. I’ll work on it and write my thoughts more clearly.

I found this interesting topic in the book Essentialism and decided to write about it. In case you want to read, you can check out Chapter 19 of Essentialism or the whole book itself.