A few nights ago, my eldest daughter was talking with her grandmother on the telephone. They were discussing their upcoming trip together to the Galapagos Islands. My mother decided to take each of her grandchildren on a trip sometime after their thirteenth birthdays. She and my eldest decided on a National Geographic Expedition to the Galapagos. It will surely be a trip of a lifetime! As they were discussing reading material for their upcoming trip, my mother must have asked if she was getting excited and starting to plan for their trip in May. I heard my daughter reply, “No, I try to stay in the present and focus on all that I have going on right in front of me.”
Wiser words never escaped a fourteen year old’s lips. I remember thinking to myself, “Did I ever understand this and practice it? Have I merely forgotten it, or did I ever even know?”
Regardless of whether I ever possessed this skill, it is one that I am now cultivating. The past is done, and there is nothing that I can do to change it, regardless of how I feel about it. The future is beyond me, and while what I do in the present does affect it, to experience worry or anxiety around it is futile. Any expectations that I may have about the future are subject to life and cannot be controlled nor relied upon. Therefore, the only thing that I can control is right here in front of me, in the present. I can choose my thoughts, actions, and feelings in the present. I can choose my focus. Focusing on the past and present are illusory, for the present is the only thing that is real.
Yeah, yeah. I know it’s easier said than done. I cannot tell you how many times in the day I need to bring my focus back to the present. It is constant. And, I believe that if I continue this practice, then one day, in the future, it will be as automatic for me as it is for my daughter.
