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Ancient Eastern wisdom and modern Western psychology unanimously urge us to learn how to live here and now. But what exactly does this mean? And what benefits does it give us? Let’s try to bring some clarity to this concept – simple only at first glance.
Now you are at home, preparing dinner in the kitchen. But your head is occupied with a heap of thoughts and experiences that have piled on you at work, at a morning planning meeting or an evening meeting. Stop! Take a deep breath and return to what you are doing. Smell the vegetables you are chopping for salad, admire the combination of colors in your dish, listen to the music that comes from the room, and rejoice: now you will be dining with those who are close to you and whom you love. At this moment you do not need to live with anything else – so use it! Pay attention to your bodily sensations – this will help you return to yourself. Why worry about what has already happened – there and then – and what you cannot influence now? The past day has passed, tomorrow will be a new one. In its light, you will be able to more clearly understand what powers you have to build a relationship with someone or complete a job. By that time, you will no longer be the same as you are today, others will also change, and the reality that you have to deal with will inevitably be new.
Simple on the surface, this little exercise actually builds on a powerful foundation. It is based on very ancient wisdom, dating back to Greek philosophy, before Buddhism, and cognitive therapy, and the latest discoveries of positive psychology, according to which the ability to live in the present can bring a solution to a significant part of our problems and the fulfillment of many desires. But first, it is worth understanding what exactly stands behind this expression – “here and now”, because in the history of recent decades it had different meanings.
The crisis does not cancel the past or the future
“Competence in time” is one of the main features of a mature personality. Why relationships with one’s own time are so important, and especially in times of crisis, explains psychotherapist Margarita Zhamkochyan.
“A mature person easily navigates the time stream: he turns to his experience, at the same time foresees the future, builds it, outlines goals, and experiences the present in the fullness of sensations and feelings. He is competent in time, because he is aware of the connection between events of the past, future and present. Even if today hurts, as, for example, during times of crisis. A variety of crises: layoffs at work, a loved one left … If at the same time we live in a purely present moment and feel only that despair, powerlessness, hopelessness, we thereby cross out the past where we felt good, and put an end to the future in which could apply our experience. In a moment of crisis, it is important to understand that what we have experienced is just feedback that allows us to draw conclusions and learn lessons. A mature person knows: just as new skin appears at the site of a burn, so after any crisis, something new, different will surely come. Suffering doesn’t mean the end of the road.”
Catch the moment!
So, in the USSR in the second half of the 70s, in the era of late stagnation, there was something similar to stability and confidence in the future. “This is a time of relative calm and prosperity, calmness and consciousness that it is unlikely that anything will change,” notes sociologist Boris Dubin. – The authorities at that time focused on the present: we built a new historical society, a new type of person appeared – the Soviet person, this is our life. Some kind of food variety appeared, foreign goods, people began to build their lives, decorate it.
In the West, meanwhile, life went on under the slogan carpe diem (“seize the day” – lat.). It was a joyful and… wasteful existence, which was initiated by the student revolution of 1968. Then it was believed that living one day is cool. “The culture of “everything and at once” triumphed, extolling pleasure without prohibitions and thoughts about tomorrow,” recalls the philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky. These happy times of economic growth and consumer boom convinced Europeans that “the present has managed to absorb all their dreams and passions.” Living it to the fullest meant wasting time, yourself and everything around, because the resources seemed limitless.
However, times have changed very quickly. “In the 1990s, a new here and now model emerges in the West,” continues Gilles Lipovetsky. “The ease and carelessness of the old days are over.” The world around us has become tougher (economic recession, rising terrorism, epidemics), everyone’s private life is more vulnerable, and the future is more and more uncertain. “It has become clear that the planet’s resources are finite, our long-term health depends on how we treat it, and the life of future generations – our children – is determined here and now,” analyzes Gilles Lipovetsky. “We are making conscious choices in the present (biking instead of driving, eating organic, flying less) to prepare ourselves for a better future.”
SHOULD YOU CONTINUE WORRYING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED “THE THERE AND THEN” AND WHAT WE CANNOT AFFECT NOW?
For Russia, the late 80s and 90s were a unique time, completely unlike what the West experienced. “From the beginning of perestroika to the default of 1998, Russians managed to experience the whole gamut of emotions from charm to disappointment,” emphasizes Boris Dubin. Rapid changes in society, shock therapy, monetary reforms forced us to focus entirely on survival. To live here and now was then the only way of existence, and not at all a conscious choice.
The new century has brought Russia a new long-awaited period of stability. However, even in the 2000s, “most of us were still forced to live for today, to make plans only for the near future,” notes Boris Dubin, and the ecstasy of newfound well-being sometimes bordered on the position “even a deluge after us.”
Build the future and just live
Today we are beginning to live in a completely different present, which paradoxically brings Russian and Western reality closer. In an era of global economic crisis, we understand each other better than ever.
By being so close (unwittingly) to the present, we can consciously make it a powerful tool for dealing with fear and insecurity. Indeed, in the present, a lot depends on us and we can influence our own life (and, therefore, the future) only by consciously acting here and now.
Are you worried about your child’s school success? Instead of imagining an uncertain future, stay in the present. What can you do today to support him? Invite some student who can help with the lessons, or sign up for the parent committee? It doesn’t matter if it’s your job loss, global warming or your child’s health that’s worrying you. To overcome the feeling of powerlessness, there is only one remedy – to act immediately.
Finding support in the present is the surest way to restore strength and gain energy, and today we need it especially urgently. “We are experiencing a time compression that no one has experienced before,” explains development perspective specialist Thierry Gaudin. We’ve already reached nanoseconds. Some devices today are faster than the neurons in our brains. Add to this the new means of communication—telephone, internet—with which you can be present and absent at the same time in what you now live. Our personality is fragmented. We urgently need to work on being truly present where we are.”
“Psychoanalysis has a special relationship with time”
“The usual time sequence past-present-future has little to do with the flow of time with which psychoanalysis works,” says psychoanalyst Andrei Rossokhin.
“Free associations – thoughts, feelings, sensations of the patient, that is, everything that the analyst works with – are always complex temporal combinations, consisting of memories belonging to the most diverse periods of the past – from relatively recent events to those that go back to early childhood. “It was the complex connection between time and the unconscious that was revealed by psychoanalysts that forced them to reconsider the old conceptions of time, built on the basis of the connection between time and consciousness.
French psychoanalysts argue that our intuitive understanding of the present as a process between the past and the future is illusory. Unlike the linear concept of time, the present can influence the past, because in analysis the patient does not return to the historically real state of the past “then and there”, he develops a fundamentally new experience and creates new meanings and values for his life now.
Don’t miss reality
To be present for ourselves and in reality, so that we are not carried away into a life devoid of meaning, is what we strive for. It may seem easy, but it can only be achieved through some form of austerity. As our consciousness constantly wanders between impressions of the past and dreams of the future, between our prejudices and beliefs, we risk missing reality and, therefore, life.
Buddha said about two and a half thousand years ago: “Do not look for the past, do not look for the future; the past is gone, the future has not yet arrived. But watch here that thing called “now.” In addition, the Dalai Lama encourages us: the surest way to find happiness “is not to have what we want to have, but to want and appreciate what we have”*. If we strive to unconditionally accept the present, it will really open up to us.
* His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard K. Cutler The Art of Being Happy. Sofia, 2006.