REFLECTION:
Are you a restless soul like me? Every time I am not “doing” something, I get the recurring thought that I am wasting my time. I have to be on the go, growing, producing, making, accomplishing, struggling. When I have too much down time, I keep thinking that I am losing out. That YOLO mantra bangs on my cranium: “You are wasting your life. You are doing nothing! You are a loser! Get out there and do something.”
This is the drive to do that gets me wrapped up in knots so that I cannot allow myself a peaceful moment. Every second that passes by without a bang, without fanfare, without a new accomplishment, without a spectacular discovery, without a tick off the ‘to do list”, without any excitement in meeting someone new or engaging in something phenomenal, the refrain settles on my brain: I am losing out. I am not reaching my full potential. My life is puny, pathetic without consequence. My days scroll by like a roll of toilet paper each blank sheet sliding into the other and into the blank next.
The sense I feel–useless, worthless, insignificant, bored, inconsequential–keeps me from slowing down to rest, wrecks my ability to savor the moment. It goes against the entire goal of getting to the point where you do not have to struggle so much. If I have gotten to the point in my life where I don’t have to struggle so much, where I don’t have to feel the cringe of every day living so intensely, it makes sense to relish it. But instead, my restlessness, the drive that got me to this point, destroys the enjoyment of it. I am sure this is why many people who have accomplished goals and have reached a certain financial level feel a certain fizzle out, a let down. Once they get a slice of the American pie: they live in a comfortable home, make a decent salary, do not have to worry about making the next bill, they have kids in good schools, a clean slate of health, they begin to feel like failures. It is counterintuitive, but there it is. The phenomenon is akin to what war veterans experience after coming back to civilian life. They have lived in such an adrenaline rush of stress and struggle, they cannot calm down enough to enjoy that they have survived.
A certain readjustment has to happen. Not that struggle and reaching one’s potential in the face of adversity should be eliminated entirely from human experience, but that each must struggle to find a happy middle, the golden mean, the royal way between the extremes of harried struggle and uninspiring complacency. For those used to the struggle, perhaps the trick is to make peace with the halcyon and the hurricane. Maybe life is not always about the firework moments that everyone remembers. Perhaps it is as much or more about acknowledging the everyday simple gestures that are taken for granted: the breath that seeps in, the feet that steady, the faithfulness of the morning bus, the dishes drying near the sink.
This is the lesson of mindfulness: you have to quit asking for the spectacularity in each passing day and luxuriate in the present. A radical acceptance of the present as it presents itself is needed. The simple observations of the bee on the coneflower in the garden, the sleek swerve of the biker with the blue helmet riding down McGuinness, the rush of the young man to try on what he bought from Zara, the wholesomeness of the plate of spaghetti and meatballs so goshsloppingly good for lunch. Maybe the trick is to stop trying to imbue every waking moment with some sort of Sisyphian struggle to make it meaningful. Perhaps the trick is to trade these great expectations for the attitude of gratefulness for every day, the jump for joyfulness of each day. i
The trick maybe is about radical acceptance of the present and the awakening to the extraordinary in the ordinary. Maybe it’s about learning to sit still and relish the moment just as it comes.
ACTION:
Challenge yourself to sit still, right now. List 10 things you sense around you. Bring your mind to the present.
Write an ode to 5 things you are grateful for right now.
- Example: Thank you feet for not cramping, for giving me support. For helping me feel the undulating curves of the earth. for allowing me to run, skip, dance, and prance.
