Embracing the Now

"Just being alive and being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans."
-Don Ruiz, in The Four Agreements

This whole week, I have been saying that I can't wait till Friday.

In comparison to other species, humans devote very little time to living in the present. Dogs really only care about the ball their owner just threw for them or the treat that their salivary glands crave any given moment. Sure some animals store food in preparation for the dreary winter months, but do they ever spend time dwelling on things? Humans dwell. Jewel says, "if I could tell the world just one thing, it would be that we're all okay. Not to worry, cause worry is wasteful and useless in times like these." I'd say that's some pretty sound advice.

We often allow ourselves to be consumed by outside dramas. Just as "Buddha" literally means "awakened one," I think many concepts of buddhism would be truly awakening. If we spend all our lives waiting for the weekend, or waiting until graduation, or waiting until the next promotion, soon we will be just waiting to die and none of it will matter. It really shocks me how I can write so dismally while wearing pink toenail polish and a sequened shirt.

It's so easy to forget to just be. In my acting class at Penn State, we did something that really taught me how to readjust and find my happy place in times of severe stress or anxiety. We were told to lie down on the floor, and take 5 whole minutes to get up. The simplicity of the task coupled with the amount of time you are given to complete it requires extreme concentration and very slow movement. Every movement must be executed with deliberate purpose, because you have 5 whole minutes to stand completely up-right. My teacher said that once she was made to do this for an entire hour.

If we lived life that way, we could feel the immediacy of everything. If we lived in every moment, concentrating only each task we are presented with, while knowing that at any second our time could run out, maybe we could live more fully. In any case, next time you find yourself looking at people but not really hearing what they say because you are too caught up in the stressors of your busy life, try this relaxation technique.

The moment is the only place you really need to be.