By Paul Hendrickson –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have a busy life \u2013 not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.\n(Cue the theme from Seinfeld.) My wife and I rush from one child\u2019s sporting\nevent to the next, one school activity to the next, then to work, the grocery,\nchurch, endless errands, and the list goes on. We get so busy we forget to\nenjoy the small, individual moments that make up the busy day. From what I can\nsee, we are not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I submit that we as a culture get so busy, we forget to enjoy what we have, and seek only to add more activities to the day and more things to our closet. But what if we existed in the moment? What if we took time to take time? I have recently attempted to do this with admittedly moderate success. I have tried to be fully engaged in conversations and activities and not look at the time or glance at the schedule to see what was next. It is incredibly hard to do and seems counterintuitive at times. I mean we have to be ready for the next thing on our list, right? We have to gather everything together, so we are ready to go. But do we have to constantly look at the time and the schedule? Modern technology allows it, but is it good for us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a peace that comes from being in the moment. Anxiety\nand stress can build up when we start to think about the things we have left to\ndo. We can also stress about the things we have already done. Some will dwell\non it so much they make themselves physically ill. Focusing on the moment quiets\nour mind to think about what we are doing in the present. It heightens our\nsenses to absorb the world around us in a way busyness cannot. The famous\npsychologist Abraham Maslow put it this way \u2013 \u201cThe ability to be in the present\nmoment is a major component of mental wellness.\u201d In other words, it is to our\nbenefit to be in the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How does one stay in the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a great question. Thanks for asking. I do not claim\nto have the complete answer to the question, but a few exercises that are\nshowing some promise are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are just starting your journey to be in the moment, I\nwish you much success. If you have been on the journey for some time and not\nachieving the results you had hoped for, keep working at it. I trust we will both\nget there before our last moments expire!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Paul Hendrickson – We have a busy life \u2013 not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that. (Cue the theme from Seinfeld.) My wife and I rush from one child\u2019s sporting event to the next, one school activity to the next, then to work, the grocery, church, endless errands, and the list goes on. We Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paBBVc-5S","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/paperbackdragon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Exist-in-the-Moment.jpg?fit=1920%2C1482","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}