What about the future? What about the things that need to be done and the time needed to be allotted for them? Is it really just casting off your worries and concerns and just blissing out now? Seems kind of irresponsible. I mean it might buy you a moment’s peace sure, but it won’t take care of things to come.
It’s important to prepare for the future, but it’s not necessary to spend every moment of one’s life doing so. Some people are so obsessed with thoughts of the future (to-do lists, as well as concerns about what might or might not come to pass) that they are unable to tune them out, and it makes it difficult for them to enjoy the present. It makes their whole life a miserable serious slog, devoid of the joy of the moment. It also makes them unpleasant to be around during moments that are supposed to be fun.
You need a balance. Certainly, you have to plan for the future and keep long-term consequences in mind when doing things. But you need to execute those plans in the present. You can plan to do something in the future, but when the time comes to do it, it will be the present.
Don’t say “someday I must make time for my kids” or “someday I must tell my SO what they mean to me.” Walk over right now and talk to them and tell them that you love them.
I guess what came to mind was The Power of Now. The book seemed kind of “woo-y” in a lot of ways and it raved about how the present is the magical moment where everything you need is (or something like that). I mean if I were a New York Times bestseller and on Oprah I could afford to “be present” all the time.
I guess when you put it a certain way, we tend to get stuck in our heads about all the what-ifs and desperate to control our future that we make ourselves miserable now. Saying you’ll be happy if X, y, and Z happen rather than taking time now. In a sense I can get that, I know I spend too much worrying about that and that, what if this is true or not. I guess the saying would go “we’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it”.
Then there’s the bit about suffering caused by a denial of the present, but that doesn’t seem right. I mean a toothache is happening now but that doesn’t make the suffering any less. Same with any other event happening in the moment.
Sigh, this presence bit is confusing.
That is very astute. There is a big difference between pain and suffering. Pain just happens but suffering is optional. That is why mindfulness practices are so successful in chronic pain management.
Sounds like someone we all know…here…in this thread.
Is suffering truly optional? It’s not like people choose it.
Aesop covered the situation with The Grasshopper and the Ant millenia ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper.
If you’re not familiar with the story, a grasshopper plays and dances all through the year not worrying about or stocking up for the winter, while the ant diligently works hard and stocks up his reserves. When winter comes, the starving grasshopper begs the ant for food and shelter, and depending on which version of the story you read or see (it’s been done numerous times as cartoons), the ant either lets the grasshopper die or invites him in and saves him.
I’ve been a grassphopper almost my life and am now likely facing having to work while others my age are long retired. That said, I figure I’ve lived the best part (my youth) doing what I’ve wanted and the next 15-20 years of having to work when others are relaxing is a trade-off and decision I don’t regret in any way.
Read the numerous threads here about people lamenting about how they’re not as happy, rich, famous, loved, liked, etc., etc., etc. as they think they deserve or should be.
IMHO, I define suffering as 98% emotional and 2% physical (with the physical part being directly related to pain). We look at the homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk as suffering, while he’s looking at those working 60+ hours a week to maintain a home as the one who’s suffering.
Opps, just double-checked and millenia isn’t a real word or a correct description of what I meant, i.e. thousands of years ago, ~2.6 (~600 BCE) to be more precise.
Just gotta point out that not all homeless feel that way. But there certainly are some that do. And vice-versa.
I think ‘being present’ simply means not being distracted by worries, daydreams, and unhelpful thoughts and emotions of all kinds.
It means being giving all your attention to what needs to be done or experienced in the present moment.
But… planning effectively for the future is also something that needs to be done in the present. Working efficiently with all your attention is also something that needs to be done in the present. It doesn’t mean checking out or doing nothing, it means giving all your attention to whatever you are doing now.
Please read the post I made in your last thread, especially the second half. Please.
Not so sure about “being present” so much as “being in the moment”, but I felt my experiences in college with psychedelics were a very extreme form of one or the other.
My ADD and the internet really prevents me from being present very often. It’s Usually while in deep conversations helping someone else.
I think the point is more to contrast two different psychological situations. In one, your mind is running around thinking about all the things you need to think about, and often worrying and going over the same old ruts again and again, and you may effectively be detached from your senses of the present moment, which is in ways exhausting and depleting. In the other, you let go of that busy whirring and upset, and if you pay attention to anything it is the small sights and sounds and feelings around you, maybe your own breathing in particular, which is in ways refreshing and relieving. A balance between the two may be best. But in our busy and materialistic society, an excess of the first state is pretty typical, and so most people would benefit by shifting toward the second.
There seems to be a brain function distinction between these two states. There is a subsystem in the brain called the “default mode network” that operates when nothing of higher priority displaces it, and the process of learning things includes learning to do them easily enough to let the default mode network start up again while you do them. Physically there are specific brain regions engaged. Mentally this is the time you spend in the first state. Perhaps evolution created the DMN to use spare processor cycles, so to speak, playing out social or strategic scenarios to help us be more successful, but that would be “successful” in an evolutionary sense, such as creating many offspring and the means to support them.
According to a Scientific American article a few years back, scientists studying meditation learned that what meditation specializes in is slowing the default mode network, and delaying its automatic reengagement. There certainly appear to be a range of benefits.
I don’t think this is the distinction between planning for the future and ignoring it. In fact, being present can help people keep evolving towards a state of happiness in life, rather than growing old and realizing that one set the wrong goals.
“All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was… what he was doing.”
-Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back
“Being present” means being actively engaged in what your are currently doing, as opposed to zoning out, texting on your phone or daydreaming about becoming a Rebel pilot.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a distinction between “focusing on now” and “planning for the future”. Like you can set aside time for yourself to focus making your future plans. But be “present” in making those plans. Don’t get distracted every time your buddies show up in their T-16 and ask if you want to go shoot womp rats.
I would imagine literally no one thinks that way.
Right. Here is an example. Say all your life you wanted to see the monuments of Europe. You’re there, at last, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. But instead of being present, of looking at and enjoying it, you are planning when you have to leave to get to Rome.
Not being present means you miss something important.
Our lives have plenty of time for planning. But there are times not for planning.
Having a toothache is a wonderful example of something you might not want to be present for.
I have some thoughts, relating to being grateful for each moment…
But I’m not present in this thread.
Meditation studies only measure the short term. There are cases where it also causes psychosis, denationalization, depression, anxiety, and impaired mental capacity. For some people meditation made life worse for them.
I can say that “being present” in the past didn’t really make me any happier. Happiness came from inside my head. The joy I felt was mostly the result of the way I saw things. Being present requires letting all that go. What remains is…well nothing. A void I would say.
I could argue that our success was because we could anticipate and plan on level others creatures can’t. Being present “might” afford some level of peace an happiness but it’s not something humans as a whole should practice. The reason those monks can do it is because they don’t have much to concern themselves with. They don’t seem to know much about life in general only what their teachings allegedly reveal.
Being present seems like one of those things that would be harmful if everyone did it.