Are you living in the moment? Tell us how you do it!
E-mail me at Ellie@BouncebackCafe.com or leave a comment at the end of this post. We love hearing from you!
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
This was, apparently, our week of “NOW” posts. We definitely think you should get yourself some NOW time, and of course, we think you could do with some – now. In fact, I invite you to get yourself a cup a tea and put your feet up while you read on…
We opened the week at Bouncebackcafe.com admiring a traditional holiday toy – the snow globe. And suggested it as a intriguing zen analogy for a settled and clear mind – one that’s ready to embrace the now. Check it out in my post, it’s a pretty neat and easy meditation technique. But if that just doesn’t cut it for you, then, when you have a moment, take a look at Jay Dixit’s e-article, Six Steps to Living in the Moment in which he remarks:
One of life’s sharpest paradoxes is that your brightest future hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present.
Feeling Stretched to the Limit?
Do any of you remember the old action toy called Stretch Armstrong? Marketers bragged: “S-t-r-e-t-c-h him and he returns to normal size!” I always thought Stretch Armstrong was a very strange toy. But I wonder how many of you out there feel like you’re being stretched beyond your capacity??? PattiAnn and I surely do… and we’re learning, slowly but surely that it’s up to us to set reasonable expectations – for ourselves and for others. Life is too short for us to try to live like an action hero. We’re real people. We need to live real lives NOT the ideal lives of superwomen.
So, in her post, Reasonable Expectations, PattiAnn advises judging your holiday expectations and implementations with this measuring stick:
If the action and result seem balanced to you, call it good.
Or, perhaps you’d rather think about Mark Harrison’s terse advice in Getting Things Done – The Essence of Effective Action, where he blithely remarks:
Isn’t it easier to walk around the mountain than to go over it?
Well sure, sometimes it is. Or, barring that, hire a pack team to help carry the load! But stop trying to do it all yourself… these holidays are about more than doing, doing, doing…
And then, in the last but perhaps most pragmatic of our posts this week, PattiAnn offers in Stay Here Now the easiest and best-est technique yet. (In my not so humble opinion.) When things start dragging you down and you find yourself leaning into the stress, simply remind yourself, “not helpful” and move on to helpful. If you think that’s too easy, take a look into the post and get the full explanation from PattiAnn herself.
And to paraphrase Jay Dixit… If, as you’re reading this, you’re living in the moment – how’s that tea by the way – then good for you. Nothing happens next. Now is not a destination. This is it. You’re already there.
Are you living in the moment? Tell us how you do it!
E-mail me at Ellie@BouncebackCafe.com or leave a comment. We love hearing from you!
