Barely into Arizona, my mind was already cataloging the endless tasks needing completion once I arrived in Florida. I’d sold most of my furniture, so number one, buy furniture. Or maybe number one was the grocery store…or maybe order coffee. Yes. Order coffee was number one. But what about the unpacking, and the organization, or the closets. Definitely closets, a re-do was in order. Wait…join the gym, I needed to swim if I had any chance at remaining sane through the process. As I rattled off the endless list, my co-pilot, gal-pal, wise sage looked at me and simply said, “this is the only present time we’ll ever have.”
I stopped making my lists.
Work your plan
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
I come by my urge to plan honestly. From a young age, planning helped mitigate risk. Understanding what was ahead aided my young mind to anticipate, understand, so that the impact would be lower, and I would be prepared. Suffice it to say those lessons stuck with me. I’m continually twelve steps ahead, my mind operating like a flowchart. Contingencies mapped; possible outcomes predicted.
Suffice it to say, go with the flow and I are not besties.
Planning isn’t the worst thing. You arrive prepared, with a plan of action, knowing the steps ahead to achieve your objective. Planning is necessary in many facets of our life, without it, we’d stumble our way through what could otherwise be a simple task.
And yet, cognitively I know all that planning removes me from being in the moment. When we’re consumed with planning ahead, focusing on the future, how can we possibly be in the now. As the landscape rose before me in the hills of Arizona, I was reminded to focus on what was directly before me. The present.
Looking backwards
With the invention of cell phone cameras in 2002, we gained the ability to capture the moment and review it seconds later. Though I wasn’t an early adopter, the cell phone camera was quickly in my possession and I joined the millions of people viewing the world through the small screen in front of me. But at what cost? Rather than participating in family activities, we photographed them and looked back at the memory that, ironically, we’d missed the first time around.
As the Arizona landscape grew increasingly beautiful, my co-pilot captured the scenery on my phone (because I am a compliant, non-cell phone using driver thank you very much). Several times I glanced in the rear-view mirror at the scenery and she may or may not have reached out the sunroof to capture the panorama.
How many of us have looked back at a situation only to rehash it and deliberate the endless ways we could have executed more effectively? What would have done differently? Where the situation has left us today? While the exercise may be helpful, considering the learning, it doesn’t change the outcome and keeps us in the past. A place we cannot change.
Hey…remember me? The present?
With good reason vacations are relaxing. We’re removed from our day to day lives and can accomplish exactly zero things on our list at home. The mental load of all the things needing to be done is cast aside for those days we’re out of our normal environment. We’re able to remain in the moment.
That moment, this moment, is our present. This one. Right now. And the truth is, while we can plan for it, look backwards and rehash it, or examine it from every angle, it is right now. Why don’t we, or better yet, why don’t I, remain in it? Even now as I write, focused on the words in front of me, my mind is whirling ahead to the list of tasks I hope to accomplish today. Carefully estimating the duration to make the most of every single second.
What does it take to stop?
It’s cliché to say that the present is a present…but it’s true. The gift is being in the now. With people directly in front of you, or the experience of the moment. Is there a place for future planning or past reflection? Of course there is. But that place should not consume the moment you’re in. It has a place.
In this moment, who and what is the priority? Hint…it’s not your to-do list for Monday morning.
I’ll make you a deal, I’ll focus on today if you do it with me. Taking in the moments, breathing in the experience and truly living now. You in? It’s our journey friends, one step, one moment, at a time. Be Brave. Lisa