I came across this interesting article: "How Blinded Is Your Thinking at This Very Moment? Your strongest convictions are powerfully swayed by the here-and-now" (Sonja Lyubomirsky in How of Happiness, Psychology Now Magazine).
I think that this is a notion that we can shake our heads to in agreement - it makes sense and we know that it's true in most instances - our perception of how full or empty our glass is can be linked directly to our present state of mind of whether we are experiencing a warm and sunny or a windy, cloudy day on planet ME.
This might be the reason why wise people would often say that you should 'sleep on it' before you make an important decision. I am a big supporter of impulsivity, to act in the moment and to not always think about the consequences and the domino effect that one decision might have. I believe there is a definite place for this as well, and that it's actually important to sometimes just act and do, without thinking twice. This, however, might be the safer route to follow when minor decisions are at stake - it will make no difference in the bigger picture if I do decide to eat that second ice-cream, take the day off or to go dancing in the rain. When we have to decide if we're taking up a new job, if we should relocate or whether we should start a family - decisions that will have a significant impact on our lives - it probably is best to 'sleep on it'.
The bottom line is that the thing or things that are bothering us now will most probably not be causing any distress tomorrow - chances are good that we won't even remember that we were unhappy and even if we do, what the cause(s) of our unhappiness were. A reminder, once again, that the how of happiness is locked up in today, now, this moment. Such a simple truth but much harder to really embrace and implement - for me - that is.
What would you say about the how of happiness?
With Monday's post about the importance of letting go and to just 'be' still fresh in my mind I came across this interesting article by Jay Dixit on Psychology Today's website about mindfulness and really living (or trying to live, at least) in the present.
You Are Not Your Thoughts
Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what's past. "We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence," says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. We're always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm.
When we're at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don't appreciate the living present because our "monkey minds," as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.
Most of us don't undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. "Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall," writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biomedical scientist who introduced meditation into mainstream medicine. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and, as Kabat-Zinn puts it, to "rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just being."
Living in the moment involves a profound paradox: You can't pursue it for its benefits. That's because the expectation of reward launches a future-oriented mindset, which subverts the entire process. Instead, you just have to trust that the rewards will come. There are many paths to mindfulness—and at the core of each is a paradox. Ironically, letting go of what you want is the only way to get it.
Click here for the full article and a few tricks on letting go.
