Presence Today

I choose to talk about Presence today. It is one of the Six Habits in Laura DiBenedetto’s book, The Six Habits. If you want to know more about it and would like to read the book, the link for it on Amazon is here: The Six Habits. The audio just came out too, by the way.

Presence is in short, all about mindful presence. Can you be in the room and be fully focused on what is going on in the room? It’s not as easy as one might imagine, especially in these modern times when we have numerous distractions- TV, radio, and the biggest attention-sucker ever- smart phones.

Then there are the internal distractions. How often do you catch yourself thinking, “I wish I was anywhere but here?” Or my favorite, “I wish I was home right now,” while I’m at work. Sometimes, my mind wanders about 200 miles northwest of my current location, in a nice forested area, with a lake and a view of the mountains, within driving distance of the Pacific Ocean…

But the catch is, can you bring yourself back? Can you be fully on top of your game at work? Can you listen to the kids telling you about some video game character or a YouTuber they’ve discovered? Sometimes it’s hard. My email, especially ads from dice companies, is way more interesting than either thing I just mentioned.

My favorite example was the other day at a restaurant. This woman was at the table across from us with her family of six. My kids know, and my wife is usually aware of the rule, phones get put away at the dinner table. My guess is, the nice lady across from us did not have that rule at her house, or that phone call must’ve been pretty important.

Meanwhile, her husband was trying to wrangle the kids, all of whom were probably 10 and under, squirrelly as most kids are, and wiggling, wriggling and monkeying around as most kids do. The guy looked absolutely miserable. That phone call lasted most of the meal. I’d probably have said something had she been my wife, but… Hopefully they sorted that out afterwards.

My other example, and this one is purely on me, is work. You think Instagram is far more amusing than my job? Spreadsheets and boring emails vs cute pictures of husky pups, kittens, bunnies, spiritual stuff, conspiracy stuff, and so on… I can get distracted very easily. The trick is coming back to the present moment.

How much more productive am I when I’m fully present? It’s pretty shocking how much I can really get done when I have my eye on the metaphorical ball. Would I rather be blogging? Yeah. Or really doing anything besides pouring over line upon line of dispatches and crunching numbers. UFOs, ETs, and things coming and going from other dimensions are way more entertaining to talk about.

Here’s the best part. Coming back to joy. I mean, if I’m more productive at work, maybe I finally get promoted or a pay increase. That keeps the family happy, right? And failing that, I get all of my actual work done and can dip out for a few and look at the latest dice offers in my personal email. Or, I can get everything set for the night and keep an eye open for driver requests while I write a blog article. Tee heehee. (Not that I ever do that.)

The same is very true at home. If I’m fully centered on my family and listening to them, I hear about their day at school. I hear about how my wife’s work went. (Yeah… the Co-la-ro-lala-nala-vir-usla is a very ugly topic here with teachers in Iowa right now…) I get to actually enjoy dropping some advice or bringing the topic around to something more interesting. Although my family’s thoughts about the Ninth Dimensional Arcturian Council are for another post. But it’s nice being a husband and a dad when life throws me a chance to be both. And there’s plenty of time to hang with the cats and write blog articles afterward. (Grin.)

Have a beautiful now moment.