April 27, 2010
Lately, I've been working on trying to be present. My tendency is to have non-stop thoughts in my head. My brain is a mega-multi-tasker and is constantly working overtime. I can't remember the last time I wasn't doing something while thinking about or doing a million other things. And it's not serving me. I think too much. I get too overwhelmed. I postulate. And it distracts me from enjoying the journey and the present. In my new book I read that an optimist is someone who looks at the big picture and views current situations and upsets as fleeting and unimportant and a pessimist is someone who thinks that current situations and upsets are how it's going to be forever. I thought, "oh great! I'm a pessimist then!" I have a hard time enjoying the ride. I tend more towards the "it's going to be like this FOREVER...EEEK!" train of thought.
And I've always thought of myself as an optimistic/positive person. Now I'm confused. In the book too, it also talks about how optimism is not necessarily better than pessimism and that each way to be has a place in life and a function of survivability. The idea is to play up your innate strengths, and find a life that uses those strengths, which (they say) leads to lasting fulfillment. The author is a psychologist. Phd and everything. He must know something about something. He's one of the founders of this (pretty) new field of psychology called Positive Psychology. Fascinating.
This morning, Vaughn and I took ten minutes out of the morning to meditate together. All in service of this being present idea. I almost didn't say anything because it sounds funny to me. I've never been a meditator. But it's cool stuff. One thing he mentioned that I thought was really interesting was that you can meditate all day long. It doesn't always have to look like sitting cross-legged on the floor. The idea is to be present in everything you do. So when you're squeezing honey into your tea, squeeze honey into your tea. Notice how the honey container feels in your hand. Notice the weight. The feel of the plastic. This is all new to me, but I ate my breakfast really differently today.
Yesterday I read two chapters in my book. Today I want to practice being present.
Challenge 107: Practice being present
107 down. 258 to go.
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That definition of pessimist and optimist is too simplistic. Don't let the fact that the author has a PhD affect your evaluation of his (or her) ideas. (You can have a bunch of degrees and still be full of crap.) Evaluate what the author is saying on its own merits. Use what you can use. Discard whatever isn't helpful for you personally. IMHO, if you think you're an optimist, you probably are because a real pessimist would NOT think they're an optimist! LOL! ;-) The "being present" exercises are a good thing! :-) (Multi-tasking tends to work against it, though. You can't fully appreciate each thing if you're doing five things at once.) You might want to browse some Buddhist books/magazines: I think the whole being present thing is similar to the Buddhist concept of "mindfulness".
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you're doing this at the same time that I am. I just got a great book called "Daily Meditations for Calming your Anxious Mind". It's been really helpful. Also, the book "Eat, Pray, Love" has a wonderful exploration of exactly what you're talking about: shutting down the chatter, being in the moment, noticing your life fully in the present. The author writes about spending a few months in an ashram, learning to meditate and how to be fully present, how her mind fought it, how hard it was to be quiet in the moment. It certainly made me appreciate Vaughn's experience!
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