One root of both depression and anxiety is where you live…
Anything that requires your total focus on the present will distract you from other issues. How can we use this knowledge to an advantage. What are the issues that we should be avoiding? Very simply put, the past and the future, but only if their consideration is unhelpful. Let me be clearer. Some people live in the past, some with regrets that are irresolvable, dispiriting and ultimately depressing. Some live in the past with a, usually false, sense of nostalgia (even nostalgia is not as good as it used to be) but enjoying happy memories can easily become grasping for a lost past that can never be; this also becomes depressing. Of course the past should be remembered. At the very least, so that mistakes aren’t repeated, but also so that opportunities for gratitude aren’t missed. But the past is only a place to visit, you can’t live there.
Some people try to live in the future with optimistic expectation. They are like people on a cruise ship holiday, who instead of enjoying the views as they pass and the wonderful amenities of the ship, are locked in their cabins eagerly hoping that it will be great when they arrive, not realising that when they ‘arrive’ the cruise is over. They spend the week, waiting for the weekend. They work through the year waiting for their holiday, but because they are in the thinking habit, they can’t help spending their holiday counting down the days till they go back to work, usually with dread. They tell themselves that things will be great when they leave school, when they finish Uni, when they get a boy/girl friend, when they get married, when they get kids, when they get that promotion, when the kids leave home. These people look forward to retiring to the point that they wish they could miss all the bit in-between. Then they look forward to grand kids coming to visit. That of course is just the optimistic ones. Others notice the uncertainty of the future and realise that so many things could go wrong that they spend their time worrying about so many things that anything that does happen, has already accounted for more suffering in its anticipation than it will in its actualisation. Again, the future is a place to visit. Consider the good and look forward to it, consider the possible dangers and take sensible precautions. But you cant live there as it doesn’t exist. The tendency to live in the future creates great anxiety, whether you are optimistic or pessimistic.
Obviously some people manage to flip between the past and the future.
Right now is the place to live. Look out of the window and enjoy the ride. Stop and smell the flowers. This moment is probably not that bad. Probably none of the terrible things that have happened in the past are happening. Probably none of the terrible things that might happen in the future are happening. Right now 4 billion bits of information are entering your brain from your senses and most of them are nice. Take a moment to notice every thing you can feel from your toes to the top of your head. Notice everything you can hear… everything. Now use your peripheral vision to take in everything you can see. Fix your eyes on something, then notice the very right and left, top and bottom of your vision. What can you smell?
Whatever you are doing give it your full attention. Notice the good aspects of it. You’re washing up, how wonderful is warm water! You’re waiting for a bus, how splendid are those close clouds? Don’t drop the plates and don’t miss the bus; that wouldn’t be your full attention, but if you haven’t noticed the water or the clouds then you weren’t giving it your full attention either.
Live now. it is the only time you can. Enjoy the journey. The journey may be all there is.
