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“If you say nothing makes you happy, that’s wonderful. I have boxes full of nothing which I will sell to you.”
-Comedian Father Guido Sarducci
Nothing is quite topical these day—doing nothing, that is. Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Oprah Winfrey, and others teach the value of being still. When we are still, we naturally tune back into our awareness of our senses, feelings, and thoughts.
Most of us have entered into lifestyles that depend on accomplishments and possessions for happiness. “I’ll be glad when…..” is a simple and direct way to deny the availability of being glad now.
Recognizing and accepting the present moment as the only time there is requires determination and focus. Thoughts, feelings, words, memories all vie for our attention. Look around you and you’re likely to see people who are pursuing life through their cell phones and the internet, seeking a subtle something that seems to be missing from where and when they are actually existing.
Living is an art that requires skills. Staying alive means being aware and understanding danger from opportunity. Relating with other beings is also an art. To stay alive and have healthy relationships is a life well lived. Yet most people struggle to keep their awareness where they are.
A man who doesn’t keep eye contact, emotional and mental connection with his family tells them he is more interested in something else. Is that you?
When we focus on our senses, our thinking is naturally informed by Nature, from which we are made. A subtle and important understanding is that our senses can lead us to thoughts about our lives based on the past, rather than the present which is actually here and going on.
Boys and men are often taught to accomplish rather than to connect. Healthy, growing men choose to do both in the form of accomplishing connection as a means of loving their families, friends, and life.
Allow me to correct my language a bit to clarify: Accomplishing connection sounds like there’s a way to be disconnected, which is not the case at all. All of life is connected to all of life. While we can ignore or deny connection to others, we cannot actually separate from them. So focusing on our existing connection, i.e. recognizing connection, is an easy step back into the reality of an all-encompassing love which is our true nature.
Asking the question “What am I accomplishing ?” or remaining focused on being busy and getting to the next important event is a common way for us to live up to the goal of being a man. The cost can be and often is that we are not quiet enough to actually experience our families. What they are saying, thinking, and feeling is part of us, our life. These children and their mothers stay connected (and so do we) to our attention to them.
Being quiet, doing nothing more than listening, attending, understanding requires maturity. Busy minds, voices, hands, bodies are potential connections to simple present love which accepts and becomes part of what already is.
When you find yourself ahead of the moment, thinking of what’s next rather than what your family member, friend or co-worker is telling you, take a breath and come back into your body.
Take another breath and come back into the moment.
Now is the only time you have to love those you choose to love. Now is the only time you can choose to ignore your relationship with loved ones. Is that game, commitment, thought you are edging into worth leaving the beautiful moment with your wife, children? Are you man enough to stay and find out what Life is offering? Or are you more important than those you are leaving?
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This post was previously published on the author’s blog and is republished here with permission from the author.
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