I got the news that I’m actually married to a twenty one year old by text, as you’d expect. Apparently he’d done one of those online assessments that gives you your ‘real’ age based on your physical fitness – resting pulse rate, certain vital measurements. Nice. He’s actually about to hit twice that number but apparently all that running and cycling and football yada yada has paid off and he’s found a way to make time stand still…
For the rest of us, here’s the reality: time marches on. Relentlessly. And is it just me, or is it actually speeding up? I’ve been more than a little freaked out recently by the fact that our first-born is in her final weeks of primary school. Chose a glamorous Year Six Farewell Dress. Keeps casually standing next to me and resting on my shoulder at almost exactly the same height. How did this happen?
I wrote a poem in my last year of high school about how we ‘will never walk this way again’ – kind of a cross between the deep metaphysical musings of as-the-sands-through-the-hour-glass-so-too-are-the-days-of-our-lives and the modern YOLO thing. It was probably a bit naff but it blew me away at the time.
It boils down to this: no matter whether you love or hate what you’re doing right now – IT WILL END. And soon. Sooner than you think. The sleepless nights with the crying child. The idyllic courtship. The sweetspot in the job. The troublesome patch in the marriage. The everyday mundane blur of whatever it is you’re doing right now… it will end.
And so this is the advice we’re given: stay in the moment. Don’t get caught up in the past. Don’t be too quick to imagine the future – everything that could go wrong, every glorious possibility, all the things that need doing. Just stay in the present. Live it. Make the most of it. Because soon it will be gone.
It’s great advice but I think we’re crap at taking it.
Ever had that experience of getting in your car, starting it up and arriving at a destination 10 minutes later with NO REAL MEMORY WHATSOEVER of how you got there? (Okay. Just me then.) My hunch is at least part of the time we live on auto pilot – cruising along, either thinking about what’s next or perhaps… not really thinking at all. Kind of a shame really. So much of life potentially just… misting on by.
One of my favourite songs by the Indigo Girls contains the line “We’re better off for all that we let in.” To my mind, life in all its guts and glory (and even its dull grey lumpy bits) is better off when it’s fully lived.
So to that end: Some ideas this week to help with staying in the moment.
Begin my day by noticing how good my bed feels. Or (not so much in my case) my body, after a good nights sleep.
Multi-tasking has become a way of life, but it’s an enemy of being in the moment. Try really hard to just do one thing at a time – finish one job before I jump to another. And don’t get distracted by my PHONE at all hours of the day and night!
Practise being a better listener. Give people my full attention when they speak to me. “Listen so people want to speak to you. Speak so people want to listen.”
Practise savouring something I might normally rush through – like a shower, my lunch or listening to music. *NB I do not ever rush through a shower. I take all day if possible. Sometimes a good deal longer.
Set an alarm on my phone and just sit still, wherever I am and breathe for a few minutes. Notice how slowing down and breathing makes my body and mind feel.
Walk outside and notice my environment: imagine describing it to a blind person. Pick things up. Feel them.
Resist the temptation to speculate. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Stop pretending I do.
Do something kind for someone – whether that’s in word or deed.
What else do you do to stay in the moment? ‘Cause I could use some help!
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