Category: Being Present

There are moments, oh so brief and fleeting, during everyday happenings, that connect us to the infinite.

It’s right at peak extension of our morning stretch and just as we scratch the precise location of a butt itch.

It’s the moment when the temperature of our shower hits just the right degree and just as we exhale calmly from feeling most refreshed.

It’s that first sip of coffee, brewed exactly to our liking, and the moment our nose catches its aroma as we close our eyes and carefully breathe it in.

It’s our hands cupping warm ceramic in frigid air or the feel of cool water moving mouth to throat to stomach on a sweltering hot day.

It’s that moment during a hug when we’re pulled in tighter or the moment during a kiss when you both decide to lean back in.

Rather than rush through these moments in an effort to get more quickly to the next… What if we lingered there instead?

What if instead of taking these moments for granted because they’re less than .01% of our day… we made them something we appreciated with as close to 100% of our attention while we’re there?

Maybe our days wouldn’t feel like such a blur. Maybe the moments wouldn’t all vanish behind the off putting comment, criticism, or some kind of fear.

Maybe what’s happening in the .01% is really the only thing that ever is happening?

…Maybe it’s just about us being there.

There’s an infinitely small sliver that’s smack in between past and future.

And it’s on the edge of that razor that one of life’s great paradoxes is found… eternity.

Because eternity isn’t really about time times infinity… it’s about bringing infinity into the span of a single moment of time—the vastness of it all, balanced on the smallest of lines.

See you never really touch the past—yet it expands infinitely behind us…

And you never really touch the future—yet it expands infinitely in front of us… both as vast as the universe itself.

…But here? Right on this tiniest of slivers that we stand on in-between these two infinitely expanding timelines?

This is where eternity lies. In the constantly renewing string of nows… again and again and again… the only place where infinitely expanding timelines don’t survive.

The trick is to keep balanced on the sliver. Because slipping into the depths of the past and falling forward into a bed of daydreams of the future is impossible to avoid altogether.

But those who can learn to balance on the sliver more often… get more.

More fully received experiences. More fully present moments. More tastes of eternity…

Every afternoon, between 2-3pm, I:

• Put on noise-cancelling headphones
• Sit quietly into my posture-correcting chair
• Sip on a scorching cup of black coffee
• Read, re-read, think, re-think, stare at blank pages…
• And write

And it’s one of my favorite hours of my day.

Not because of what gets done… but because of how much reward comes from the moments themselves within the hour.

I feel this way about my time spent teaching, practicing martial arts, playing basketball, dancing at music shows, conversing with my favorite people…

These are the things we should be packing our days with—the things we don’t want to end.

I dread the day when I won’t be able to do even one of the above mentioned activities… because this is how I’m most enjoying spending my life’s time.

And today’s reminder is simple: don’t get so caught up in trying to finish, trying to be done, in being “productive”, in being “efficient”, or in getting to whatever is next that you forget to enjoy the reward that comes from doing your favorite things right here in the now.

A coaching client mentioned today how frustrated she was that she hasn’t been spending enough quality time with her son.

She explained that every time she has been with him recently, she felt busy and tied up doing life things: cleaning, meal prepping, scheduling, etc…

I told her: rather than have this distracted need to be done with all the life things before she brought a quality time task to her son, maybe she could find ways to bring quality into the life things.

I told her: quality time isn’t a task; it’s a state of mind.

And the reality is: it’ll never all be done!

The key is to meet yourself where you are, let curiosity arise in the current situation, and find ways to playfully engage a quality into the time.

Yesterday I drove from Buffalo, NY to Philadelphia, PA.

The drive was supposed to take six hours. But, because of weather, it took close to eleven.

That’s not only a lot of time to be driving, but it’s a lot of time to be with yourself.

And what I kept telling myself is that it was as good of a time as any to enjoy just being… and that being in Philadelphia wasn’t a better place to be than wherever I was on the road.

So I kept the music on loud… held a steady presence focused on the elements on the road… and tried to relax into my mind.

Sometimes singing came up… sometimes it was dancing… and sometimes it was inner work type thoughts. I welcomed it all. I fought none of it. And I arrived right when I was supposed to.

It oftentimes seems like many of us would.

In fact, when I look around, it seems like everybody is living in fast forward all of the time.

And for what?

To arrive where, exactly?

Back in bed? To doom scroll? For passive entertainment?

…Death?

Once the time passes, we don’t get it back.

Maybe we should try to live in “Play” or “Slow Motion” whenever possible so we don’t arrive at the end of our “Fast Forward” wishing we could press “Rewind.”

It seems to me like sitting and just being with one singular person or task or thought is becoming increasingly difficult for the modern person.

And it’s because we’re increasingly normalizing “multi-tasking,” distracted presence, and boundary-less access.

If we want to feel more fulfilled, we need to do better at filling our moments with undivided attention, energy, and effort. It’s the split attention, energy, and effort that always leaves us feeling unfulfilled, isn’t it?

Think about the days when you’re brushing your teeth while putting clothes on, checking emails at red lights, scrolling through socials while in work meetings, taking business calls while chauffeuring the kids, watching the restaurant TVs while eating out with family…

It’s all so scatterbrained and mismatched!

Of course we feel unfulfilled at the end of our days.

What we need to do is try to normalize the opposite:

• Just brushing our teeth and nothing else.
• Just getting dressed and nothing else.
• Just driving our car and nothing else.
• Just checking emails and nothing else.
• Just having business meetings and nothing else.
• Just chauffeuring the kids and nothing else.
• Just eating dinner with the fam and nothing else.
• Just having a conversation and nothing else.
• Just making a phone call and nothing else.
• Just making love and nothing else.
• Just sending a text and nothing else.
• Just exercising and nothing else.
• Just reading and nothing else.
• Just sitting in cue lines and nothing else.
• Just walking and nothing else.
• Just being and nothing else.

It’s unbelievable how simple it all is.

…And yet, it’s one of the hardest things for the modern person to do.