Have you ever noticed that when you spend too much time dwelling on the past, you get depressed about how certain situations played out and what you could have done differently?  And when you are always looking ahead to the future, you get anxious about the unknown?

Although I find it hard to do, I am going to try and listen to the career advice I’ve been given by a few friends and colleagues – to try to live in the present moment as often as I can.  I want to take time to reflect on the speaking engagement that went well today, instead of worrying about the one I have to do next week.  I want to celebrate the fact that the new book sold a bunch of copies this week, instead of lamenting that we had a slow period in June. 

I think that one way I can practice my present-moment focus is by interacting with my 4 month-old son.  Sometimes, when I play with him and read to him, and he looks up at me and smiles, I feel like we’re the only two people in the universe.  I can’t picture being anywhere else at that moment.  If I could extend this to the rest of my life, I would be golden.

You know who’s good at zeroing in on the present moment?  Fiction authors.  They have to be – otherwise they wouldn’t notice the everyday details, as in how the stranger who came to the door was wearing a mumu like Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company, or the way the porch flowers craned their necks a particular way to catch the sunlight, that make a novel come to life.

Our lives are made up of billions of individual moments, and unless we pay attention to them, are we really living at all?