You just picked up the paper, read through the headlines and meandered toward the opinion section. You glanced at the section and your eyes drifted to this article until suddenly you arrived exactly at this period.
Probably, however, if you consider how you arrived here, it seems blurry. The exact moments leading up to this moment are probably unclear in your mind.
Today is Friday: the end of the week. What did you do this week? Do you remember or were you just going through the motions, surrendering to the ocean of responsibility and allowing the currents to move you backwards and forwards?
Are you living in the present moment?
My junior year, at the end of a literature class, my professor left the class with some departing thoughts. He said, “no matter what the circumstance, if it is challenging, frightening or joyful, never seek to escape the present moment.”
His advice was in response to a strong tendency in our daily lives – to retreat. We immerse ourselves in a world of message media, meetings and assignments. We fixate on sharing ourselves, listening to our playlists and planning our futures.
When was the last time you just ruminated in the exact moment that you were living in?
Living in the present – obviously – means forgetting about the past and the future. It means abandoning thoughts of the test you just took, about the meeting you have this evening or about the paper you have to work on this weekend.
We are very effective at hoping for the future or remembering the past, but we often fail at living in the present. When was the last time you had a conversation with someone instead of texting them? Or the last time you forgot about your email, Facebook and Twitter accounts to just live in the now?
Our evasion of the present seems to suggest a fear of abandoning ourselves to the circumstance, of thinking or being the wrong thing, and of not taking the “right” path. We should aspire to more than this “mental slavery” (in the words of Bob Marley). The comfort that comes with dodging today and this very instant is not lasting. It is a misleading, empty placebo.
By steering clear of the present moment, we avert our eyes from the problems within us and in our communities. We avoid poverty, hunger and injustice in our backyards by receding to the places of comfort and control. We don’t spend time in our backyard, we don’t get to know our neighbors, and we just live our lives. Avoiding the present moment is not only a personal problem; it is social too.
Sure, it may be an idealistic aim – to completely avoid projecting our minds into the possibility of the future or into the nostalgia of the past. Nevertheless, it is equally idealistic to assume that the present won’t inevitably catch up with us. In moments of tragedy, despair or loneliness, the present moment has likely slapped us all in the face.
Living in the present is not merely a harsh, frightening experience. It can be a peaceful, charming reality as well. There is something liberating about allowing the present to pass over and in that same instant leave you – about being attached to nothing more that the exact moment you are in.
Certainly, abandoning any self-examination or planning for the future is unlikely and impractical. However, cultivating a practice of sitting only in the present can be both relaxing and enlightening. It may even be mystical.
Here at SMU and in Dallas, our time is very short. We get to spend only four years at this school. Each moment is precious. Don’t avoid them. Embrace the present, live a little, and have fun a lot. You’re not likely to regret it.
Drew Konow is a senior religious studies, foreign languages and literatures triple major. He can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].
