Living the now

As an old codger who has survived more than eight decades, it only struck me recently that we spend too much time in anticipation. I even wrote a poem about it (see below). It seems to be more important to plan, prepare for, and dwell on future events and to find most of our satisfaction in waiting for them to happen. Even children are expected to find happiness in consideration of the coming occasion, whether birthdays, Christmas or outings. However, if this is taken to the extreme, too often the actual event is a disappointment.

Add to this an article in a recent edition of New Scientist on Stress, which explains there are both benefits and bad outcomes depending on your mindset. Stress does not have to result in poor physical or mental health, it just depends on how we view it. It can be as simple as the contrast between: I am unhappy at having to carry out this task, and I will delay and worry about it until it is done, compared with I am going to start straight away, give it my best efforts, and enjoy the satisfaction of having achieved it.

What is common to both scenarios is the over-emphasis on anticipation. In dwelling on future events or demanding tasks, we are failing to live in the now. All too often we spend time thinking and worrying about the future, when there can be much satisfaction in enjoying what is happening in the present.

Always waiting

I suppose I was waiting to be born and my mother was waiting for me to arrive. Then I cried ‘cos I was waiting to be fed, and she was waiting for me to stop. All my life I have been waiting – to got to school, to leave school, to go to university, to graduate, to start my first job, to make some money. Then I was waiting for the right girl to come along, to make love, to be loved and had to wait for the wedding, for our first child, then the second, and so on. Then we had to wait for the divorce, and I had to wait for the money, and then wait for my new home. Waiting for retirement took a long time, and now I suppose I am waiting to die. But hang on, what’s all this waiting for? Is living merely anticipating? What can hold us in the present? To be, or not to be, now, is the question. Only in being, in sensing, thinking and feeling; only in loving and caring, fully aware of body and world, can we set aside the waiting. Now I am lost in this poem – unwaiting.