GETTING LOST IN THE MOMENT

Recently I posted an essay in which I encouraged the reader to take fuller advantage of and to better appreciate the one life that we have.  But I have been criticized by both family and friends for failing to follow my own admonition.  Specifically, I have been accused of spending too much time fretting over the past or worrying about the future, rather than experiencing my life in the present.  I confess: Guilty as charged.

While we cannot ignore the past or the future, we can, I believe, commit to better appreciating the present, experiencing our lives as they occur rather than in review or anticipation.  So here is one way that works for me: Getting lost in the moment.

When my son graduated from high school, I asked him to accompany me on a business trip to Utah.  We took advantage of the trip to do some hiking in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.  It was the first real experience for each of us with longer day hiking in the Desert Southwest, and we had a great time.  One of the hikes that we did in Zion was named Angel’s Landing.  We hadn’t fully realized what we were in for.  The trail for this five-mile, out-and-back hike, constructed during the Great Depression, is well maintained.  And the hike itself is not particularly “technical”: You don’t need equipment other than a suitable pair of shoes.  However, we discovered that at one point the hike required traversing a narrow ridge with sheer drop-offs on both sides.  A lack of attention could result in essentially a straight drop of over 1000 feet on either side.  Further on, the hike involved scaling steep rock slopes, pulling oneself up by using a series of chains bolted into the rock and footholds chipped into the slope.  We made it to the top, and the view was absolutely spectacular.  However, the trip back down was, if anything, more daunting than the trip up.  [The hike may sound dangerous, but a recent article reported that it has been five years since anyone has plunged to their death while hiking the Angel’s Landing trail.  So there’s that.]  I can say that, over the course of that afternoon, at least during the more challenging sections of the hike, I was concentrating solely on how to navigate the trail.  I wasn’t thinking about the business I had recently conducted or even about what we would be doing later in the day.  I was lost in the moment.

But I don’t need to put myself at physical risk in order to get lost in the moment.  Photography is a hobby of mine, and I sometimes find myself wandering around with my camera, looking for photo opportunities.  Sometimes these sessions are disappointing.  I simply fail to find any subject that matches my personal interests.  But other times I stumble onto something and become focused on the compositional and technical aspects of trying to get that one good shot.  Those times, too, are ones where I am not thinking about either the past or the future, but simply of the task at hand.

In both situations I come away with a certain deep satisfaction, knowing that I have been absorbed in what I love.

So here is my point.  We cannot fill our days continuously living in the moment.  Life is complex and requires both planning for the future as well as assessment of the past.  But we can and should find times when we are simply in the present.  And one way to do that is to look for an activity that we love and that can absorb our attention and allow us to get lost in the moment.


© 2017 John M. Phillips