What if you lost everything?

Lots of talk of ‘mindfulness’ and ‘living in the present’ might cause you to wonder about how you can actually do that. I've tried mediation and it doesn't really do much for me. Maybe I’m not doing it right, but that’s not the point, is it?

I heard or read somewhere recently that part of it is to stop thinking you’ll be happy when you reach a particular goal or acquire a certain amount of material wealth. That doesn't bring happiness because it’s a constantly moving target. Once you reach the milestone you have been daydreaming about, you’ll just go ahead and replace it with another one. Reminds me of a hamster on a wheel.

The suggested alternative is to learn to be happy now, with what you've got, which brings me to the purpose of my post. A quick method to bring about a state of ‘mindfulness’…

Imagine losing your wallet, or your keys, or phone. An inconvenience for sure. Depending what was on the phone or in the wallet etc. it could put quite a dent in your day.

Imagine losing your job. You’d be up at nights, lying in the dark, unable to sleep with nightmarish visions of sleeping in a cardboard box.

Take it up a notch and imagine losing the people that are most important to you. Your friends…family…pets…wife…husband.

Imagine losing an arm, or a leg. Go ahead and just for a minute imagine losing all of your limbs.

Imagine losing your sight or any of your other senses.

Imagine losing your health. Imagine being told you don’t have long left and you will be in so much pain during the time that does remain that you will want to be dead anyway.

Imagine losing everything!

Then imagine how happy you would be if you got it all back again…