Yesterday I was not the same person I am today. Tomorrow I won’t be the same person I am today. That is, if I’m lucky. And if I’m willing to pay attention.
Learn something new every day.
This is really easy for me in my job. In technology, things change so quickly that it’s a running joke anymore. But in general life, it’s so very easy to trudge through each day without thinking, and therefore without learning.
The big events have a big impact and are quite obvious. I recently learned about a friend of a friend who passed away from an aneurism. I know this happens – most people do. It’s even often a supportive cliché used to justify living life to the fullest – because you could die from an aneurism at any moment in your life. That and getting “hit by a bus tomorrow”. Even though I didn’t know the friend, this rang awfully close to home. As it would for most. And I truly did take a moment to focus on all that I’m grateful for in my life. I learned that I want to be more conscientious of those I love and care about.
But not everything is life and death. Most of what we deal with in life isn’t life and death. Most of what we deal with is repetition. Day in, day out. SSDD, as some say. So, outside of school or work, to learn something new every single day becomes quite the challenge. You have to pay attention. You have to be conscious of your surroundings at the moment. You have to be in that moment. If you’re out playing golf and thinking about laundry that needs to be done, you’re not in that moment and you’ve removed any opportunity to see anything new. This, as well as the fact that you’re not concentrating on hitting the ball.
Years ago, before I learned this – how to live in the moment (and not neglect the rest of my life) – I was gardening in my backyard. I had a small vegetable garden and a border of flowers around the small yard. Nothing special. I was crouched down weeding when, out of the corner of my eye, almost behind me, I saw a large black spot slowly and erratically fly by. I turned to see a very large, extremely slow bumblebee buzzing by. I have no fear of bees so it didn’t bother me, but I was so curious. Why was it so slow? It had to be the biggest bumblebee I’d ever seen. Maybe some funny species? After a moment, it sped up a bit and eventually flew away at the normal speed of a bee. Back to my garden and a moment later I saw another one. I got up and turned around and just stood and watched the backyard. Maybe they were in our eaves. Or our neighbors’ eaves. I’m looking up and I see another one come from below. What the…? Ok, so then I watched the ground. A moment later, I see a big, black bumblebee dig its way out of the dirt, walk around drunkenly for a moment and then slowly start to fly. It looked like it just woke up, which, I’m guessing at that point, was the case. I never knew bees hibernated in the dirt. I never knew bees lived anywhere other than in hives.
For me personally, I know that when I’m doing one thing and thinking about another, I don’t really “see” what I’m physically doing. I would have never seen the bee in my peripheral vision because I don’t seem to have much peripheral vision if I’m not in the moment. The more I pay attention, the more I realize how little attention I’ve been paying. The best way I’ve found to accomplish this is to think about the things I see. There’s a dialysis center on one of our morning routes and granted, we’re out there early, but I see these people coming in for treatments by car, by bus, by taxi, and I wonder what time they have to get up and how often they have to go there. I see the freedom I have to get up and go without a thought. These people have to plan around their treatments. I had walked by this place for months before I realized what it was – I was so lost in my own head and not in the moment that I saw it but I didn’t really see anything. Now I know. And now I know why I didn’t see it.
Granted, this new knowledge may have nothing to do with anything. But then, at some future point, it may. The bees made me realize that there is more going on around me than what is just in my head. And the crap in my head is often just that – crap. Worrying, surmising, dwelling – none of it is constructive. Living in the moment and paying attention to my immediate surroundings stifles all of that. So now, when I pass that dialysis center, I feel grateful for my own health and that gives me the motivation to stay healthy. And if that’s all I take away from it, I’ve learned a great deal today. And that alone makes me a different person today than I was yesterday.
