Sometimes in life being present is enough.

We talk about being successful, healthy and productive in life. We think about progress, and growth will bring about the happiness that we seek. All these assumptions seem to be true and false at the same time. Why and how they become a relative truth is written previously in articles about truth. Often there is a grossly ignored path and an approach we can take in life. I can summarise it as follows.

Sometimes in life being present is enough. Because the best feeling you can have is what you are having now.

This is hard to prove. Yet the closer you are, to the end of your life the more you will understand the relative truth in this statement becomes bigger. Let's try to understand it with a few examples.

Life

Consider myself, sitting on the couch, on a Sunday, typing out these thoughts. I don't use fancy stuff, like a notepad or a fountain pen. I do not have fun doing it, it's not rewarding like watching another motivational video, or even an episode of the day of the Jackal. But when I look at the experience I know, this has to be the best experience I should expect from life, from now. Only problem that I have is, there is no problem with it. Life seems to flow without any problem at this exact moment. But the mind often fails to understand this fact. The mind compares this tranquil experience I am having now with either past or future.

Mind projects a vision of a future, which doesn't exist. And which will never exist. When I relax and type, the mind brings out the memories of the last vacation I went to. I spent a decent amount of time in the east coast of the country, sunbathing and having a swim, just a week ago. And now the mind values this over the experience I am having now. And I can see this is a totally absurd process of mind. I think we already know what it means. These are two different experiences in two different places of the single function called life. Just like apple stock on a good day and an average day having two different values. Why does the mind try to tie them together? It just creates a less value to the current experience, yet when I know there is only one experience available for me to access and that is just happening now, it makes me think, maybe just being present is enough in life.

Listen to Mr Warren Buffet.

Mr Buffet

I watched the Great advice given by the great teachers of investment, Mr Warren buffet himself told, we should ignore the daily fluctuations of the values of stocks that we have invested. Trusting the universe to work for us in the long run. In his case trusting the market. As long as you are aware of the process, there is no need to react every up and down which happens each second in time. I think this perspective is a win-win situation not only for the investor but also for the mindfulness enthusiast. It seems every path that is created in nature is not straight! 

Sometimes being present is enough, in life.

Now let's look at our mindfulness practice. Let's hope you feel something now. Maybe happiness. Maybe sadness, maybe confusion, maybe anger. There is no point in trying to get rid of this feeling. There is no point hoping you will be happy in the future, when you are sad now. Sadness is what you have now and you have to work with it. That is the best feeling you will get as long as you are aware of it. Once you are aware of this and ignore the fact that your value is at an all time low, you will notice that it will not remain  low as you pictured in the past. It will slowly rise, sometimes it can rebound and recover the values you have lost, leaving you eleated for a day. But still you should be humble, and observe as that is there all we can do in life. Just to be passive observers while maintaining our ethical grounds.