Before leaving school for summer, a friend of mine was on a new kick: giving cheese-tastic motivational speeches to her roommates to start off the morning. All of her speeches were delivered almost entirely in jest. They were sarcastically self-described by my friend as “highly inspirational” and “truly heartwarming” and ranged from cliché quotations to powerful reminders like, “There’s no time like the present!”
I brushed off her advice, figuring such tawdry, overused aphorisms could easily be found in any “Inspiration-A-Day!” calendar. I mean the kind sitting in the discounted, misfit-toy-browsing-box of any local supermarket. Yet, a month or so later, while sitting in a South African fast-food chain off a rural highway, these wisdoms came back to me.
During this time, I was traveling with my friends for work. We drove down a country road for four hours on our way to the nearby Limpopo province. When we stopped at the gas station’s “café,” one friend disappeared briefly to “do some exercises.” Upon returning, she received a quick barrage of questions.
“Oh no, they’re not real exercises,” she qualified, shaking her head. “They’re called mindfulness exercises — they’re supposed to keep you in the present.”
My friend’s focus on mindfulness stemmed from an app created by a random acquaintance who found himself consistently unable to focus on what was happening right before him. The whole idea of mindfulness, then, is to get oneself into gear, to zone in on the present rather than contemplate the past or worry about the future.
Fittingly, Thomas Jefferson was a well-known proponent of this very concept. So much so, in fact, that he ditched the Rolex-equivalent of his time for a custom-made watch. Instead of tick-tocking around in a continuous circle, the hands on this watch notched back and forth between 10 seconds before and after a certain time, emphasizing the present.
While there may be a whole slew of intelligence-specific, focus-improving benefits that come with wholeheartedly embracing the “today’s a gift; that’s why they call it the present!” approach to everyday life, you’d have to talk to TJ about them instead of asking me. However, even without wearing some 10-second watch, I can say it sure seems to me like TJ — along with both my exercise and advice-happy friends — were on to something when it came to their emphasis on living in the moment.
“Living in the moment” is a phrase which has become a bit botched in and of itself. It’s overused and underappreciated because of its worn-out meaning. We associate this saying with adventure, with rebellion, with intrepidity, with gumption. All of those things I commend, but I’ve begun to think the dramatics associated with “living in the moment” overshadow the true meaning of the phrase.
While “living in the moment” and mindfulness may have different connotations, both concepts stress the importance of refusing to let a minute pass in which you’re not fully conscious and of being totally cognizant as often as possible.
On the return route of the road trip, another passenger sprung into a story about how she often finds herself rationing time to hurry up moments spent away from her longterm boyfriend. I understand missing people, and I understand being excited about reunions or big events or what-have-you, but I don’t agree with wishing time away.
In fact, when it comes to counting down the minutes to something out of excitement for it to occur, there seems to be plenty to appreciate in the interim.
Mary’s column runs biweekly. She can be reached at m.long@cavalierdaily.com.
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