
What does it mean to truly be with one’s self?
Let us set up a scene.
Imagine sitting at a cafe, with a cup of coffee on one hand, and a plate of the cafe’s best bread on the other. What are the thoughts passing through your mind?
Maybe the thought of the previous work-day load before still lingers on your mind, and you are left to make sense of all the events that had happened. And that leads you to visit this cafe and sit with that cup of coffee?
Or maybe it’s something deeper.
Maybe the cause of you sitting in that cafe was not because of that work-day load. Maybe it was that desire to just be.
With society as it is. It gets difficult to find time to just be with yourself. Our phones do not aid us in being more present with our daily lives. The usual notifications from our favorite apps always seem to take up most of our mental load.
If phone notifications are not disturbing us. Usually, it’s our mental processes that cloud our thinking. Leaving us even more distracted than those notifications.
Until we look closely at the present.
If you can immerse yourself on the thought that you are present. You are presently in that cafe. Having that cup of coffee. Eating that plate of bread. If you can immerse yourself with the scenery that is unfolding right outside that cafe’s window. I wonder what you will find?
Will you find out that the weather outside is pleasant? How do the people out there look like? Are their expressions evident by the way they walk? Or do their body language give a hint of how they are enjoying the conversation with the other person they are with?
These things most people would understandably not take notice of. Why? Because they are minute details that no one would even think of taking note of. Things they would not take note of if they were somewhere else. Mentally.
Yes, sometimes thinking does push us forward. In society, in life, and relationships. But only often do we get to just be present where we are right now.
To truly be with one’s self means that you are aware of how YOU are feeling. How YOU are enjoying the current moment. Where YOU are in the current moment.
Therefore I believe that to truly be with one’s self. Is to always just be present on how you are as of the present moment. Yes, you do need to think about the past and the future. But if ever you find yourself in that moment where you can just be with yourself. Treat yourself with the gift, the present provides.
