Her comment reflected an attitude that I'm coming to realize is prevalent these days. Living in the now has somehow come to be seen by many as a luxury, like membership in a country club. Even as I say "by many" I realize that most people don't think about or aim to practice a centered life at all. We call it hippie-dippy or Eastern mysticism or we don't call "it" anything because it doesn't enter most people's consciousness at all. Somehow I am counting on the real possibility that you, Dear Reader, will be at least interested enough to read on.
Present-centeredness really isn't Eastern or hippyish or a destination designed for the older set. It's what you were born to. It's one of the many reasons you love your pets. It's the realm of the sage and the baby. The toddler and the meditator. It's as clear as the nose on your face.
And yet, our society conspires to make the state of being here and now seem either exotic or superfluous. Especially living in a severely capitalist society, all the people and businesses and corporations are invested in your longing and desire for something new and somewhere else. Something you haven't "got" yet. Somewhere you haven't "done" yet.
The presiding idea in this world we share is living for your future until retirement, and then, finally, presumably, getting the big payoff of contentedness, having been worn out and brainwashed. So no, my young friend, I haven't made mindfulness central to my day-to-day life because I'm not currently working 60-hour weeks as I did for so long. But yes, my dedication to daily practice could not have become so clear and steady were I still living in the stressfulness that I couldn't see any more than a goldfish sees the water he swims in.
Another unarticulated misconception around the path back to present-centeredness is that the whole "Be Here Now" concept is not applicable to most of our lives because it is childlike and simple. We protect ourselves from our innate longing for full-out living the moment by branding that state as simple-minded, stoned, useless, and non-productive.
It's not just the Capitalist Machine that drives us nuts and leaves us with unsatisfiable longings that constantly draw us into a dizzying state of being. First and foremost, It's our illusion that each of us is our ego self. By its very nature, the ego is temporal, fragile, defensive and worried. Ripe for the plucking by marketing, by big pharma, by the dream of Mr. or Ms. Right, by all who are ready to exploit your fear of failure, of loneliness, of dying.
We all long to feel alive. And most of us have been convinced that we aren't yet fully alive and living until... until.... we get in, pay off, find love, come in first, get status, look perfect. Oy. Quoting dear Gertrude, there is no there there. We've been messed up. We've learned to conflate the verbs to have and to be.
Mindfulness practice makes sense as house-cleaning, sweeping out the cobwebs and dust of having to have and needing to need to give us back our clean, well-lighted, clear-sighted being right here, right now. Being present-centered does not mean staying away from planning, thinking, remembering or any of the wonderful things we homo sapiens are good at. Au contraire!
My work, as teacher, as actor & director, as therapist, has always really been about this one thing, guiding a return to our native state. Informed, experienced, knowledgeable, skilled, and awake! You don't have to bring along a picture ID. Just your whole self.