Living in the Moment

I read a book once about living in the "now".  It may have even been called Living in the Now, but I forget.  It was about living in each moment as it came.  Not thinking about the future or the past but enjoying what is happening just this second.  However, one of the biggest problems that I had in trying to follow this advice is that my brain races.  All the time.  Quiet moments are hard for me to come by.  Even sitting down to write this blog, my brain is three paragraphs ahead of my hands, I'm considering what to do with the chicken I took from the freezer this morning, what I'm going to wear to church tomorrow, how long will I work today and what time will I start, and when will I start to read the books I borrowed from the library this morning. 

But I practice because practice makes perfect, right?

Right.

But our move to South Carolina has taught me something else about living in the now.  It's a lot easier to do if you are happy where you are.

I have set up my home office in our new home in one of the spare bedrooms.  I have placed my desk directly in front of the window that looks over our backyard.  We seem to have a large amount of male birds in our backyard.  I know they are male because of the bright beautiful colors.  In the wild, the men wear the fancy clothes and makeup!

I have realized that taking a couple minutes between phone calls and emails to just sit and stare out the window every so often, has been unbelievably therapeutic.  Take time to smell the roses is a cliche because it's true.  Appreciation of the beauty right before my very eyes has forced a slow down in my brain.  It takes me into the moment.  And the moment is serene.  My brain slows down to concentrate on these beautiful birds and what they are doing. 

I have realized that the state bug is probably the ant.  They are everywhere.  Red ants, black ants, little ants, big ants.  The thing is, I'm not a big fan of ants.  But I have noticed that they are fascinating.  Fire ants blow my mind.  We have a fire ant mound in the backyard.  Before I began with the task of eradicating them (more so the dogs don't get covered in them than a wish to disturb them) I started screwing with them.  Weeds had grown on the mound and every so often I would go to the mound and pull up a weed.  Hundreds upon hundreds of these nasty little ants would immediately swarm around the damage on their little mountaintop and begin to fix it.  By the next day, you wouldn't know that anything had ever happened.  I would sit and watch for 5 or 10 minutes and my head would empty.  Just sitting in the now watching those ants work and work and work.  I have however suffered some fire ant bites from being a little too close.  Small price to pay for a silent brain!

So my advice to you today is to find something that you find beautiful and sit and enjoy it completely for a bit.  Don't let those moments of beauty or reveling in something you find interesting pass you by. 

You'll feel better for it.