Attention, Here and Now

I'm reading Aldous Huxley's book Island that was written in the early 1960s. The book is about a man who is shipwrecked on an island named Pala where mynah birds have been trained to repeatedly say "Attention" and "Here and now." It is a reminder to the citizens of Pala to be mindful and live in the present. This reminder is needed even more today.

Living mindfully is a way of paying attention to the people and task at hand, rather than being lost in thought. When I'm speaking to a person, it is far more enjoyable for both of us if I'm genuinely engaged in the conversation. This means listening to the other person's ideas and giving feedback that is directly related to what the other person has just said, rather than thinking about what I'm going to say next or judging the other person's ideas. If I'm doing a task mindfully, I'm less apt to make mistakes, and I find that I enjoy the task more, even if it's a routine task such as washing dishes or making the bed. I'm focused on what I am doing rather than thinking about all the other things I need to do. It also means NOT multi-tasking. Doing tasks mindfully and one at a time allows me to feel less stressed and chances are I won't have to redo the task because of errors.

Living in the present requires us to put aside our thoughts about the past and our worries about the future. Thinking about the past is not productive unless we are reviewing an experience we've had in order to learn from it and then move on, only remembering the lesson and not rehashing the incident. When we are thinking about the future, we are either looking ahead with dread or with hope. More often than not, the event we are dreading turns out much better than we thought, and our hopes for the future turn out to be not as great as we had hoped which sets us up for more disappointment. This isn't to say that we never plan ahead. We need to set aside some time to set up our budget or plan a trip, but once the plan is made we can return to enjoying the here and now. As Eckhart Tolle says, Nothing happens in the past or in the future. Everything happens in the present.

So, let's make our lives better by paying attention and living in the here and now as they did on Pala in Huxley's Island.