On Life and Being Mindful
"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." ~Robert Brault
Early in my career, I was a school teacher. One of the staff members at the high school always made a point of counting the days until the next vacation when schools would be closed. In fact, he created an equation: the number of days until the next vacation over the number of days until the summer break which always brings with it ten weeks away from school. Eventually he began calculating the number of days until he could retire. In effect, he was wishing away the days of his life.
In a similar way, it is not uncommon to hear people talk about their retirement. For example, people say they wish they won the lotto so they could retire early. Others say they wish it was twenty years later so they could take their retirement. Such sentiments are expressed in a whole variety of other ways.
I'll confess that I once thought this way as well. It is only now, at age 73, after I did retire and then returned to work, that I came to understand the purely depressing aspect of this type of thinking. After all, we have only one life, so why wish it away. Once I reached that so called glorious state of "retirement," that I realized how boring it is and how rewarding work really is.
However, this blog is not about retirement. That topic will wait a future time. Instead, this is about living mindfully. What is mindfulness? According to Psychology Today Magazine:
Living in the moment is an important concept. Thich Nhat Hanh, the brilliant Buddist who brought us mindfulness, writes about living in the moment in his book,
"The Miracle of Mindfulness, An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation."
In what I believe is a great metaphor, he talks about doing the dishes. He has trained himself to give his attention to the dishes when it's his turn to wash them, rather than worry about the future. Instead of rushing so that he can watch a television show or go somewhere else, his focus is on the moment. He points out that the past is gone and the future may never be if we die.
The fact is that now is what we have so take it in and live it to the fullest. By living it to the fullest is meant feeling and appreciating the soap, warm water and feel of the dishes. After all, the moment is all we really have. To learn more about being mindful, coping better with stress and overcoming depression, comprehensive counseling services are available. Contact Dr. Schwartz at: [email protected]
While the reader may not subscribe entirely to this way of thinking, the basic truth is unavoidable. Instead of looking forward to the next day, the next year, we must live now to the fullest and not wish away our days for some future that may never be. Of course, we do think about the past and plan for the future. The only instances in which that is a problem is when we exclude everything else. The teacher mentioned above was obsessed about the future because he hated the present in which he had to work.
I have known more than one case where a married couple finally reaches retirement so that they can fulfill their dreams of travel, when one of them dies. As one writer for Psychology Today put it:
If you or a loved one is stressed or depressed due to the pressures at work or for any other reason, comprehensive counseling services are available. Please contact Dr. Schwartz through his Email address: [email protected]or by telephone at 720-470-2028. You can find his website at the following URL: