Only this moment

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

I was listening to a podcast with Oliver Burkeman thanks to the Good Life Project, and the host Jonathan Fields called out that an average human being has ~4000 weeks of life, and I realized that I’d already crossed the 2000 mark! It was my #MagickalMoment of the day!

Though I’ve had a fairly comfortable and privileged existence, I’ve led a life of deep conflict within. Too scattered, too disintegrated — always. If I do have 2000 more weeks left to live, I don’t think I could handle living like this, despite having a fairly awesome life thanks to past karma. For once, I’d love to be completely present, extremely mindful of the moment and everything it brings, and not wanting to escape life.

I think we expect too much from life, and don’t think enough about just being. We want to be dazzled every moment. Thanks to social media, we want instant gratification all the time. When maybe, just maybe, it’s alright to just be in the moment, not wanting anything, not aspiring for anything, and just observing life, and maybe your thoughts, and letting it all go minute by minute. Maybe it’s alright to just play with your kid and not think about your to-do list. Maybe it’s alright to tackle something on your to-do list, and not think about playing with your kid.

Why is the grass always greener on the other side? Why can’t we develop prasaad buddhi — the ability to take each moment, and each situation in life, as a gift, instead of railing against everything that comes our way? We’re all planning days, weeks, months, years into the future, when we don’t know how many more breaths we have left. We are constantly disgruntled with this moment, believing that more exciting, more fulfilling moments await us in future.

This moment here, right now, is all we have. This is as good as it gets. As good as it will ever get. And if things change, then we deal with that when the time comes. Abandon hope — because that means that you’re living in the future. Abandon worry and anxiety— because that also means that you’re living in the future or the past. Just live in this moment — and live it well. Find the silver lining now — not on a random distant day. In each minute. In each situation. Become hope. Become light. Become life itself.

I always thought that this kind of thought process only served that naturally happy people in this world. Those, whose default internal setting and external circumstances are made up of joy. But in my 2000 weeks, I’ve realized that joy is a choice. I’ve met enough people with extremely trying lives, who have embraced joy as their primary nature. And I’ve also met (and been) among those who’ve had everything going for them, and yet found reasons to be miserable.

Never before in my life has the need to change been so strong. Never before in my life has sitting down and doing one thing at a time, or not doing anything at all for just 5 minutes, been this enticing. May the universe help all sentient beings just embrace the moment they’re in.