Things I Wish I Had Known #9: The Present

If you search the internet for quotes about finding happiness and joy in the present, you will find pages upon pages of content. Whether quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh, Henry David Thoreau, or Pythagoras, the gist of these ideas is that happiness does not come from longing for the past or willing the future, but from the current moment. This idea is great in concept but much more difficult in practice. It is hard to balance being present in the current moment with the need to plan for the future and reflect on the past. Despite the challenge, however, I wish I would have spent more time practicing this skill throughout my adolescence and early adulthood.

As a child, I don’t recall being stuck in the past or thinking too much about the future. I was certainly an anxious child, but I don’t feel like I struggled to be present at school, with family or friends, or during sports and activities. As an adolescent, however, the future became a place of freedom, choices, and dreams. Towards the end of my senior year in high school, I was excited to start college. In college, I did Air Force ROTC, and I couldn’t wait to be out of school and on active duty. Then I started flight school and my thoughts turned to how much easier my life would be when I wasn’t a student pilot and was a regular flyer in a squadron. Guess what? As soon as I got to that squadron, it was time to focus on upgrading to the next position, next rank, and next move. The lowest point of my life occurred when I left the military, lost my identity as an aviator, and had to search for an entirely new career. After a lot of setbacks, I started graduate school, and as you can guess, I was excited to finish and get out to do my new job.

Don’t get me wrong, I have amazing memories from all of these times in my life. I am not trying to paint the picture of a person who was unhappy throughout her entire early adulthood. Quite the opposite; I loved these times and only wish I would have been more mindful of how much I really loved them when those times were the present and not part of the past. I wish I could go back and help younger me recognize times when my rumination about the past and eagerness, or worry, for the future was getting in the way of me taking time to appreciate the small moments of joy that occur each day. I would remind that person to take an extra minute to look at the sun setting over Corpus Christi, Texas, while I was riding in the jump seat at 5,000 feet and to soak in the feeling of being surrounded my by family in a foreign country.

And while I cannot go back and tell younger me to do those things, I can use this lesson as a reminder for myself in the here and now. I am fortunate that in my career as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I am exposed to reminders to be mindful almost daily. Mindfulness, as a practice, is supported by a large body of evidence, specifically in reducing the suffering that is associated with many mental health problems. I want to be the type of therapist who “practices what she preaches,” and in doing so, I have to be aware of my own shortcomings. I will probably always be a person who worries about the future or frets about the past. But while I can’t necessarily change my temperament, I can work on noticing times when my tendencies get in the way of cultivating happiness and finding joy in everyday moments.

Submitted by Cara Pozun