Where are you?

Wherever you are, be there.
Jim Rohn
1930 – 2009

If you’re going to enjoy more happiness in your life, you need to eliminate things that create unhappiness in your life. One significant source of unhappiness is the inability to “be where we are”. It seems that humans have a tendency to be in one place physically, yet be mentally absent.

Consider the occasions when you were present in body but missing in spirit. Have you been in conversation with a friend and caught yourself thinking about some problem at home? Or have you been home at the dinner table while your mind was replaying a disagreement with a boss or co-worker? What about being at work and finding yourself distracted by tasks left undone at home, or being on vacation and thinking about the work waiting for you when you return?

According to research by psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Dan Gilbert of Harvard University, “People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are doing.” In other words, our minds are wandering nearly half the time, so we’re not focused on the current moment. “A human mind is a wandering mind and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” say Killingsworth and Gilbert. “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

It seems difficult to believe that almost half the time, we’re doing one thing but thinking about something else. Our minds wander to past events, future events and events that might never happen. We consider unmet obligations, unfulfilled wishes, and preferred activities. But all this mind wandering is rarely productive, and it carries an emotional cost: it contributes to our unhappiness.

So how do you stop a wandering mind? The short answer is that the untrained mind is going to wander. It takes years of meditation practice to develop a totally disciplined mind. But complete mastery isn’t necessary; you just need to become aware of the tendency and resist it. When you notice your mind has wandered, bring it back to the present moment.

The more you focus on and stay in the present, the more engaged with life you’ll become. Life can’t be experienced in the past or the future. Be present. Live life fully each and every moment of the day, for today is the only day there is.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.
Eckhart Tolle
1948 –

Copyright © 2023 John Chancellor