Being Present

Why is it so difficult to live in the moment?

If you’re tuned into the self-development industry, there are a few phrases that all influencers refer to frequently. These cliches are generally in the ballpark of:

1. Good advice (i.e. the suggested result is worthy of pursuing)

2. Simple on the surface

3. Provide no depth in terms of how to accomplish the goal

Today, I am writing about one of those phrases:

Be Present

It’s a worthy pursuit to be more present in our lives. People are happier when they can live in the moment. I know I make better decisions when my attention is fully on the present. I’m a better and more active member of any relationship when this is the case (whether it’s as a husband, father, friend, co-worker, etc.).

It’s helpful to repeat the phrase “Be Present” in our minds, but a subliminal mantra only takes us so far. It’s been years since my attention was directly turned to the idea of being present, but any progress I’ve made has been either fleeting or gradual.

The truth is that most situations I am in are at least in some way tainted by my mind straying to the future. There’s always something on the horizon occupying a portion of my thoughts. Taking a walk with the family? I have some anxiety over the work I have to finish when I am home. Playing in the backyard with my son? I’m running through the hectic weekend schedule in my mind.

Those examples make it appear as if there’s always something negative distracting me, but that’s not always the case. It can also be something positive I am looking forward to doing that pulls me out of the moment. It’s as if thinking about these future events in my mind tricks me into feeling “productive” (the need to feel that way is a post for another day).

Social media plays a role, too. Not only is there some life event on the horizon for me to consider at all times, but there’s also a conversation in Slack or X that I could contribute to. It’s a warped mindset for sure, but I think it plagues many people. I’m surely not the only person who can flip a switch from being blissfully unaware of an argument to racing to a computer to provide my reply and offer my opinion. This is something I’ve touched on briefly in a past post titled You Don’t Have To Have An Opinion.

It’s been shown that everyone is nostalgic for certain years of their childhood, regardless of age or birth year. And while I know this bias affects me as much as anyone, I can’t help but think there’s something a bit more to some of my childhood nostalgia. When I think about the moments I most envy of my past self or wish I could revisit, it’s all moments when I was fully present. The feeling of freedom on the last day of school before summer. Being fully engrossed in a week of basketball camp. Going to a sporting event with my dad and not being distracted by my phone.

My last post on this Substack discussed my relationship with my phone, and it’s impossible not to see the correlation between that post and today’s post. Bo Burnham has offered a lot of profound insight on this topic, in my opinion. In a clip geared more towards adolescents, Burnham observes, “...what a strange choice to have to make at the end of the night between all of the information in the history of the world and the back of your eyelids.” It’s no wonder it’s difficult to be present.

As I mentioned earlier, it's often fleeting when I make progress in this area. My friends and I joke about how I am drawn to extremes, my mantra at times being “Never Middle.” I go through periods where I am quite present most of the day, but I am very much offline during those periods. Conversely, when I need to be online more for work or want to be for personal entertainment, I have a tough time flipping off that switch. Quite often, something as simple as hawking X for a couple of hours to get plugged into NFL news ends up having ramifications on how I’m using my time and how strong my focus is days later.

I’ve hated cleaning almost my entire life. Yet, it’s become a reprieve for me in the last few years. To be clear, I don’t clean that often, but when I do, it’s a kind of escape. It might only take me 15 minutes to do the dishes, but I am fully present when I do that task. I’m not thinking about how long it’s going to take. I’m not worried about what I will do after I finish the dishes. My hands are tied up while I am doing the dishes, so the pull of my phone evaporates since I can’t check it and do the dishes simultaneously.

I promise this post is not about getting people to do the dishes more often 🙂. But when I think about being present and how to live in the moment better, the only ideas I have are to force myself into situations where I am either forced to be present or the circumstances allow that feeling to arise organically. I hope that mindset affects me positively as I move to my next daily interaction, the one after that, and so on and so forth. It’s the opposite of how binging some time on X can negatively affect my subsequent interactions.

Here are some examples where I can feel myself living in the moment:

• At dinner with friends, when I leave my phone at home (referenced this in my last post)

• At golf with friends (not checking my phone until the round is over)

• Cleaning

• Reading

• Trail Running

• Meditation

There is some active choice in being present for all these examples. Still, there’s also an element of “I can’t be doing the thing I am worried about, or I have to be fully engrossed in this task” that sort of frees me up or gives me permission to be fully focused on the current moment. I worry I am not articulating that well, but I hope it makes sense to anyone reading this. 

A lot of times when I post here, it’s because I feel like I have a good beat on something that is really helping me and that I want to share. In this instance, though, it’s simply a topic I wanted to write through. I’m wired to offer some suggestions and hopefulness at the end of the post, which I did in the preceding couple of paragraphs. Still, mostly, I am trying to bring attention to something that has been on my mind and, ideally, connecting with others reading this who may be noticing something similar.

Another Related Post: Monotasking