You often hear people say, 'live in the moment' or 'be present.' What does it mean to 'live in the moment' or 'be present'? And how do you do this?
When I can keep my awareness engaged with you and give you my undivided attention, I am focused. When I am focused, I am in the moment. I am being present. Being present and being in the moment is a by-product of being able to focus. When I can focus and give you my undivided attention, I am being present with you.
So, to tell someone to be present or be in the moment is erroneous. It’s better to tell them to be focused because when they do, they can be present. And, as I have said many times before, telling someone to focus is not enough if they don’t know how to focus. We must teach them and then train them to practice it daily so that they can be good at it.
So don't practice being present; rather, practice being focused.
Why would we want to ‘be present’? When we can be focused and hence be present in all of our interactions, we can fully experience them. How many people go through life physically present but mentally absent in their daily experiences?
Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone in person and at some point in the conversation they ask you, “Where are you?” They ask you this because they sense you are no longer paying attention to what they are saying.
The correct answer to that question is, “I am right here standing in front of you.” In the context of what I teach about awareness and the mind, the right way to phrase that question would be, “Where is your awareness?” And the answer can then be, “Oh honey, it wandered away the moment you started talking.”
How many parents may physically be playing with their child, for example, or having a meal with them, but mentally their awareness is somewhere else? Because they are not focused, they are unable to be mentally present. And because they are not present, they are missing out on that experience. The child feels it. The person you are with feels it. They feel your absence. At this point, why even bother being there? Just get a mannequin of yourself and place it with your child.
Focus allows you to be present and allows you to experience life fully. It's a shame to get to the end of your life knowing that you only partially experienced all your experiences in life, if that at all. We have experiences in life so that we can experience them. Focus allows you to fully experience them.
I want to live a full life. And in order to do that, I know I need to be good at being able to focus. The better I am at it, the more I can experience my life, which leads to me living a full life. A rewarding life.
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