“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future…” The notion of how swiftly time is passing continues to impress itself upon me. Time does have a way of speeding up, and as I look at how my life has evolved over the past year I find myself both amazed and aghast at how quickly the first quarter of the year is over. James Taylor says that “the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time,” but I find that it is so fleeting how is one to enjoy it. Perhaps the answer, in part, lies in the idea of living in the moment.
I don’t pretend to know much about living in the moment–there are many wise and eloquent teachers who talk a lot about what it means and how to approach actually doing it. What I do know is that living in the moment is definitely a practice I want to, well, practice. I want to engage in the process, develop the skill to let go of regrets over the past and anxieties about the future and settle into a vast expanse of the right now. While I don’t fully know what it looks like, I do know that it requires slowing down and not rushing through the various experiences we live through over the course of a single day. It requires paying more attention to what’s happening around me, as best I can.
I find sometimes that I rush around from thing to thing, meeting to meeting, event to event and that even when I don’t have something scheduled next, I still hurry my way toward whatever it is I’m planning to do next. I sometimes drive faster than I need to so I can hurry to get someplace so that I can hurry some more. This is crazy-making, to say the least, so at various points this week and today, I forced myself to stop and slow my movements and my activities. I gently reminded myself as I rushed around this morning, anxious that I would be “late,” that no one in particular would be looking for me until 10 a.m. when I had my first meeting of the day. I need not speed down the highway to get to work, fussing at slow drivers who act as if they are not doing anything as important as I am in taking myself to work.
How often do I rush through the day, focused on “what’s next?” and “Now what?” rather than taking a moment or to simply to be in the moment or two. What would it be like to create space for myself to simply be present with whatever is happening in the space around me, to breathe in and out and relax for a minute or two. My work colleagues see me rippin’ and runnin’ around. What am I modeling for them about exercising self care and about slowing down, taking time to appreciate the people around us and in a sense being grateful to them for their magnificence?
Here is the good news. I can start right this minute to live in the moment. And then I can practice living in this moment, and the one that comes after that. I am grateful for this growing awareness that although time appears to be speeding up, in another way it really isn’t. I am the one speeding up and running through life. I am not entirely sure how I am going to slow the pace down in my work life: people there seem as driven toward various meeting objectives, gathering data, and in general run around like maniac stressing out about all the work they have to do. But I am determined to try. Tomorrow. Tonight’s moment is about reading through this blog one more time before posting it and turning out the light. I have been overly tired lately and hope to refresh myself over the next few days. The practice of living in the moment is one that I plan to actively work on in the days ahead. I’ll report back, as always, on how it’s going.
