Blooming, late or otherwise, requires a certain degree of mindfulness. Most people understand mindfulness to mean paying attention to the present moment. But what does that really mean? Moments have no duration. As soon as you target one with your attention it’s already gone. So, if paying attention to the present moment is temporally impossible, then what is mindfulness?
Here and Now. Think of mindfulness as the ability to reduce your level of distraction and to more often focus your attention on your task-at-hand. In positive psychology, this is known as a “flow state” – being so absorbed in your actions that you lose your sense of passing time and your self-consciousness. Many of you have experienced a flow state in your lives, perhaps while dancing, cooking, skateboarding, or immersed in a project at school or work. If so, you have also experienced an end to that flow state, which generally occurs when thoughts of self or the past or future impinge on your focus.
In Zen Buddhism, this flow state is reduced to the metaphorical directive, which applies both before and after enlightenment, “chop wood, carry water.” In other words, attend to your current activity without yearning to arrive at some future time, place, or circumstance – without even desiring to accomplish your current activity. Just live within and through the only place and time in which life exists – the here and now.
But what about my hopes and dreams? What about becoming all that I can be? What about achieving the success my parents assured me that I would (or would never) achieve? What about my goals?
Blooming is not about achieving or becoming or reaching or attaining. Blooming is about accepting, surrendering, and gratefully living, right now, regardless of your current living arrangements, finances, relationships, or occupational circumstances. Right now.
Deficiency Thinking. Most people seeking any sort of advice or life coaching immediately reject the notion that life is fine as it is. The idea that joy and contentment can be experienced without any change in our external circumstances seems impossible. Most of us are conditioned to continually strive for improvement. We learn that “resting on our laurels” is complacency – that we should always be striving to improve and to achieve.
Regrettably, this “deficiency thinking,” while intended to motivate us to greater achievement, often traps us in a perpetual state of discontentment, nurturing a constant yearning to create a future self that we imagine will be better, and therefore happier, than our present self. Is it any wonder that so many of us live our days in a constantly distracted state of dissatisfaction and unhappiness?
Practicing mindfulness means learning how to reduce the time you spend lost in thought, whether those thoughts concern past regrets or accomplishments or future fears or goals. It’s impossible to remain forever focused on the present moment and never experience memories or expectations. However, it is very possible to increase the time you spend gratefully attending to the tasks of your life, while decreasing the time you spend distracted by your mental obsession with a bygone past or an imaginary future.
Try this. The remedy for all of your “future” thinking, including dreams, goals, and fears, is the same: determine the deep desire that underlies your dissatisfaction and then figure out a way to satisfy that desire here and now. For instance, if one of your goals is to “get rich,” consider why you want to become wealthy. Do you believe that monetary wealth will provide you with a feeling of abundance or perhaps rid you of the stress of financial scarcity? If so, reframe your goal as a practice aimed at creating the feeling you crave. Rather than, “I want a million dollars,” try, “I want to be free of financial worries and create a feeling of abundance.” The first statement is a goal for some imagined future that fosters dissatisfaction and distraction; the second is an intention to create a particular state of mind, here and now. The first requires postponing your life while you pursue a change in circumstance. The second requires only a commitment to take action – here and now – to create a healthy, nurturing mental state.
Yes, But. So, back to the original question. Can you live mindfully and still have goals? I’m afraid it’s one of those ‘yes, but’ answers. Yes, but first you may have to practice some here-and-now acceptance and surrender. Yes, but first you may have to find some gratitude for life as it is. Yes, but first you may have to re-think the nature of your goals – transform them from material objectives that require a distracted, future-oriented focus into emotional objectives that you can pursue immediately through a mindfulness practice.
All of that does not mean that you must abandon any hope that your circumstances will change for the better – that you can create a future that matches your vision of a healthy, joyous, and fulfilling one. It simply means refocusing your attention on what is rather than what is not – on the joy of living rather than the pain of not living differently. When you do that, your chances of making positive changes, in both your mental state and your future circumstances, increase tremendously.
To learn more about practicing mindfulness, check out my article, “Why You Should Start Meditating.”
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