Living In The Moment

/ Sirius Bizinus

Image courtesy of Stockvault.


I’ve been told it helps with anxiety. I’m garbage at it. Anything can take me out of what’s happening right now. My mind runs sprints with information. It goes from now, to what might happen, to the worst thing that can happen.

All in an instant.

For example, I’m whisked out of the moment when I hear shouting. That particular sound is something that seizes my attention. I can’t do anything to stop it. I get irritable, like when I was quitting smoking. Things frustrate me.

Then, just like that, it’s all over with.

From there I’m coming down like I’d just ran a quarter mile. My heart’s thumping along. And I’m trying to remember what the hell I was doing beforehand.

So much for living in the moment. My life is filled with them, but they’re taking me from place to place whether I like it or not. All I can do is hope I can get back to something calming after all is said and done.

Granted, I have made progress. The fear doesn’t last as long. I can even get myself out of an episode on occasion. But sometimes I feel myself dreading the constant battle. Knowing that anything can put me over the edge and I’ll have to wrestle with it. Again.

But I’m still fighting. I have to remember that.

2 thoughts on “Living In The Moment”

  1. I absolutely know how you feel with respect to this. I deal with this a lot. I have a hard time appreciating the moment because I’m always thinking ‘what if’.

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  2. I certainly hope you do not feel bad about not being able to “live in the moment” as I suggest it is vastly overrated. I am a coach of a sport, archery, that virtually requires archers to shoot their arrows in the present moment. This is as close to dogma as anything gets. It is also something we can do for only short stretched. We shoot an arrow and then we check to see how it scored (a past event), then make a plan to shoot the next one differently if we didn’t like the outcome (planning is future oriented).

    So, yes, thinking about the past or future while immersed in a technical process is not to be recommended but it is also not like it is something one can do continuously. And just what the heck is the present moment. Scientists cannot even define “now” as a physical concept.

    We are all time travelers, moving through time at the rate of one second per second. Our power as humans is in being able to anticipate the future (through imagination), but if we spend too much time in the future, or the past for that matter, we end up stubbing our toes on the curbs of life. So, there are times to be with others and times to drift off. I have found a sense of detachment to be useful in this regard. I used to get very angry at myself whenever I did ABC or XYX. Now, my response is more often “Now isn’t that interesting.” I get angry with myself far less and lead a calmer life.

    If I were getting jerked around by my brain chemistry as you are, I would also be very frustrated but I suspect I would reach for detachment before I bothered to “live in the present moment.”

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