This moment is the only moment of our life. The past is a memory, the future is our imagination. We must live deeply in this moment, live with intensity and make this moment as beautiful as it can be. When we live life with this moment-by-moment awareness, there is no doubt that everything will change for the better.
“Live in the moment” is something that we often hear, and yet sometimes, it runs the risk of being too conceptual – leaving us not really knowing how to make that happen.
But this is something that feels increasingly important to me, increasingly vital to my happiness.
You see, how you do anything is how you do everything. How you live in this moment is how you live your life. We have to make it the absolute best it can be.
We cannot know what will happen tomorrow, we cannot even know for sure what will happen in the next moment. We can make plans, but we can never know for sure. I have come to realize that the only way to live happily and in the best way, is to make the best of this moment – because that will put you in the best position for the next moment. Life is connected that way.
But I needed a real way to experience it. I needed real guidelines that I could follow to increase my awareness, mindfulness and perception in my day-to-day life.
So, I keep three things in mind, before beginning any new task during my day – and I would like to share them with you today.
1. Remind myself.
First, before any task, I remind myself. I remind myself that I am alive in this moment, and I don’t have to be. I could have died. There’s really no guarantee in life, and I am sick of living like I am invincible. I’m so far from it, I’m not so special that death would spare me. I’m tired of living thinking that death is something that happens to other people but never to me, never to the ones I love.
Talking about death is something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but death is not morbid. Death is as beautiful and as crucial as birth. And realizing my own mortality has been such an eye-opening experience.
So I remind myself that I am alive, and I have this moment to be here and be in this moment. I am so grateful for another moment of life. It fills me with a sense of urgency and intensity when I realize that I simply cannot waste it.
2. Make it lovely
My second intention is to make each moment as lovely, as beautiful as it can be – to do this, before each task I begin, I look at what I am about to spend my time on, and do what is necessary to make it more pleasant.
For example, the next thing I am about to is read a textbook to study for my upcoming exams.
Not a very pleasant task. But, necessary.
Without any forethought, I might sit on my chair, hunch over the book, and force myself to digest the information. I might be a bit uncomfortable, a little chilly, a little distracted, a little restless, a little anxious, a little resistant.
But now I am focusing on making this moment, and every moment in my day, pleasant and lovely.
So I can put on my fuzzy soft bath robe that I love (yes, these September mornings are definitely cooling down. It’s time to bring my fluffy robe that makes me feel like a marshmallow back into the routine.)
I can light my coconut milk mango candle.
I can sit comfortably, in a soft place.
I can have a tidy space around me, free from clutter.
I can open a window, let the cool new fall breeze seep into the room.
I can use my favourite highlighter and pen for writing notes. I can set them beside me.
I can sip on fresh lemonade. I have a bowl of fresh pomegranate next to me to snack on.
Suddenly -this moment is welcoming to me. My life is lovely in that moment.
Keeping this in mind, I try to do this with everything I do in my day, and it has made all the difference.
3. Make it intense
My next focus is to complete that task, and to live my day with a certain level of intensity.
I want intensity because I don’t want to live a mediocre life. I do not want to live like…meh.
I want results. I want to get somewhere. I don’t want to do things just because I should/need to/have to/want to, and not get where I need to be. I do not want to waste my time anymore. I want every action I do generate some sort of force and power in my life. With intensity comes transformation. When you are intense about something – things change. If you are intense when you work out, your body changes. If you work out like “meh”, then change is paralyzed, or excruciatingly slow.
When every moment in your life becomes a tool for transformation and change, your entire life will change.
There is one small exercise I do that helps increase my level of intensity. It requires a 5 minute commitment before every task you do. It’s worth it.
5 minutes before any task I have to do – I spend 5 minutes thinking about it. 5 minutes is a long time to think about one thing.
Suppose I have to clean a room in our apartment. I spend 5 minutes thinking about cleaning – how I am going to clean it, where I am going to start, what I’m going to use, what exactly it’s going to involve etc.
My thoughts on the subject are usually exhausted by 2 minutes, and i’m desperately itching to start. But no – I make myself keep thinking about it for the remaining 3 minutes. It’s excruciating. I builds up so much energy within me, to just go out there and DO.
And then when the 5 minutes have elapsed, I begin my work, and I work with more intensity, more power, more focus, and I usually always finish the task faster and more efficiently, than I thought I would.
I hope these three steps of bringing life and consciousness to each moment of your life can be helpful for you. They have made a big difference in how I live my day to day life.
You know how they say – take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves. When I take care of each moment, and find life in each moment, my life transforms. I can feel the changes within me.
I have just returned from a 4 day Inner Engineering course, and I have so much to share with you about this incredible experience. I will write to you soon about that. For now, this post has been sitting in my drafts for some time, so here it is.
I have a question for you – are there any things you do that keep you here in the moment? How do you live your moments?
Love always
m