Being there while getting there

After a very long day of work today, I finally got home (around 10:30), and then I took my dog out for a walk.

During the first half of my walk with the dog, my mind was buzzing with dozens of thoughts and feelings … residue from the day … things I felt excited or disappointment about … thoughts about what on earth I would write about in this blog … and much much more.

About halfway into the walk, something snapped. Perhaps my fatigue got the better of me, or perhaps I just learned a lesson by watching how my dog was conducting the walk. In any case, at that point, I suddenly became aware of my experience of the present moment … how beautiful the sky looked … how fresh the cold air tasted … how much I enjoyed being with my dog … and even how nice it felt to just walk. And that experience in the second half of my walk, in turn, reminded me of something I “know” but usually forget (e.g., during the first half of my walk), namely that to really feel alive and joyful, I need to be out of my head enough to notice what I’m experiencing in the moment. True to form, the second half of my walk was far more enjoyable and rewarding than the first half.

Perhaps like you, I am a very goal-oriented person. Goal-orientation has served me well in life in many ways. In fact, one of my goals has been to learn how to be happy, and, with diligent effort over the past several years, I’ve even been quite successful at achieving that goal. With this said, one of the down-sides of my goal-oriented personality is that it’s very easy for me to become so consumed by thoughts (as I did during the first half of my walk) that I miss my life as it is passing me by; as such, some of my “efforts” to be happy actually end up being counter-productive.

The Zen guys talk about the notion of “being there while getting there,” which basically means living deeply in the moment (and understanding that there is nothing more than the moment available to us), even while working toward future-based goals.

This blog is devoted to helping you and me become deeply joyful, healthy and successful and we’ll continue to work together to learn how to achieve this goal. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with our effort to get somewhere together, as long as we remember during this process that there’s really nowhere to for us to get to besides this moment. If we miss out on our moments (e.g., this moment) while working together toward future-based happiness - for example, when we become consumed by our thoughts - we miss out on the whole ball of wax.