Here and Now…
Have you ever done anything wonderful or fulfilling in the spur of the moment? Something seemingly ‘a no big deal’, but out of the norm? It is called living in the moment and savoring the here and now.
My cousin would narrate one such incident to me. He, after a long day of work was walking back to his apartment when he came across some Graffiti painters on the streets of Baroda. He stood a while to watch them turn the lusterless flyover walls into a work of art. Just then one of them handed him a brush and asked him to join them in their little endeavor. Being an architect with a love for painting, he jumped at the opportunity and painted the walls until the break of dawn. That there is living in the moment.
On my Coorg trip, on the Malayalam New year, we visited the Omkareshwar Temple. After paying our respects to the deity, we plonked on one of the cement benches just outside the temple premises. Now this place was located outside an other smaller temple on a sprawling ground just adjacent to a school. Mom thought it was a bad idea lurking around and I couldn’t care any less because there wasn’t anything particular to do in the hotel room.
Soon enough little kids appeared with a bat and ball and started their cricket practice. Uncle (my dad) was asked to pass the ball and like every gully cricket story history, he soon joined the kids for a round of the game. I photographed the moment.
On my way to work, in my sleep deprived state, I would click the rising sun shining across the sea face during the winter months. Life was miserable as it is, so it was essential to make little moments joyful. When stuck in a late night traffic jam, take a few pics instead, talk to a friend, watch people, take a beauty nap, contemplate and come up with your next write up, listen to music. Do anything but complain and bicker.
Will take a little tangent here but related to the above.
I once interned in a small nursing home. Most of my time was spent shadowing physicians there. They were kind enough to teach me a thing or two regarding the subject matter. That is where I met this fellow doctor a lot older than me who narrated his NDE(Near Death Experience)to me. It so happened that he was feeling slightly unwell and decided to approach one of his physician colleagues to discuss the matter. While they were at it, he collapsed then and there itself. He was resuscitated by his colleague/friend with the rest of the nursing home staff and had to be rushed to a bigger setup to get a pacemaker implanted. He proudly flaunted his bulging left subclavicular space. He was one of the most considerate people around.
If you have ever met people with NDE’s, you will know that they usually have a different perspective about life events. Perhaps they appreciate life more than to be stuck in trivialities.
When people say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, well, that is true with regards to having a template for life. As in what direction you would like to take your life in. There are no guarantees that it will work, but it is comforting to have a plan. However, it isn’t all that important to schedule every single moment of your living existence. At times, the universe has a plan prettier and mightier than what little we can conceive from the limits of our imagination.
What I gave are just mundane examples. But, as I always say, pause and look for the extraordinary in the ordinary. If you apply the same wisdom to life’s bigger events too, you will realize that, may be at times, it is wiser to go with the flow for that is when life happens to you. Even at your worst you will be okay when you learn to live in the here and now.
