Are You All In?
When I was young, I read a Zen koan that I will paraphrase here.
Two monks were playing a game of go when a third monk burst into the room shouting, “Master has told me that the world is ending tomorrow. One of the monks looked up from the game and declared, “If that’s the case, I have spent a lifetime eating simple, basic foods. I have never experienced the delights of gourmet cooking. I am going to have a fancy meal.” The monk that burst in added, “I have spent my life celibate. I have never experienced the pleasure of a woman. I shall go experience that earthly delight.”
The two monks moved toward the door then noticed the third monk was still seated. One of the two turned toward the seated monk and asked, “What will you do, brother?” The monk looked up from studying the go board. “I shall finish the game.”
In that koan, only one of the monks was living his best life. He was right where he wanted to be. The other two were postponing their respective lives. To the degree that we can live regret-free, living our best lives needs to happen in the present moment. In the present moment is where we can suck the marrow of life.
“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…” Henry David Thoreau
Developing Intense Presence
The foundation of that regretless journey is presence, to provide your full attention, without distraction, to the moment you are in. In the day’s parlance, we often refer to this level of presence as mindfulness. Mindfulness is no longer just a new-age spiritual term. Rather, it is a term that originated in ancient spiritual traditions, particularly Buddhism, where it was practiced as a means to achieve spiritual enlightenment and overcome suffering. Its introduction to the West in the late 19th and 20th centuries and subsequent popularization through scientific validation and secular applications have transformed it into a widely recognized practice for enhancing mental and emotional well-being. Today, mindfulness is embraced globally, demonstrating its enduring relevance and adaptability.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” — Master Oogway, Kung Fu Panda.
Intense presence infers that our full attention is in the ‘now’. We are not distracted by memories of our past or dreams of the future. Our absolute and undivided attention is right here, right now. If you want to see examples of that level of presence, turn on any sporting event on your television. These professional athletes are in one of two places — fully present or performing poorly and making errors. When they are on the field, court, pool, or slope in full competition, they are not thinking about their bills, the argument they had with their spouse, self-critiquing their performance, or anything other than what they are trying to accomplish in that moment. That same level of intense presence is available to us all with practice.
People use various techniques to ‘get present’. Meditation, yoga, walks in nature, deep, slow breathing, and listening to specific music are all methods I have used to help me mentally quiet down and shift myself to the present. Regardless of how I get there when I am on top of my game, I can become intensely present. In that intensely present state, the world slows down, and everything I am not focused on disappears. I am locked in the moment, attempting to capture and understand every detail.
One way that manifests is when I am listening. We have all heard of ‘active listening’, the technique of taking in what the speaker is saying and, at key points, parroting back, paraphrasing what the other person just said as a way of letting them know that you are listening to and understanding what they are sharing. I do all that but take the ‘active’ aspect of active listening a step further. I build a model in my head for what they are saying, including what I believe might be their drivers and emotional state, so that when I respond back to them, I attempt to articulate what they are saying as if I am in their shoes. This level of intensely present listening takes an immense effort. My wife would be the first to tell you that I do not always listen that way.
Listening is only one way that intense presence manifests. It also manifests in rapid yet informed decision-making, internal calm, and clarity of action in a moment of crisis, broadened situational awareness, general unflappability, and a thousand other behaviors. This level of presence establishes intense attentiveness. Intense attentiveness is the foundation for mastering awareness.
Mastering Awareness
Establishing that focused sense of attention establishes a foundation upon which you can build awareness. Mastering awareness is the work of operating at multiple levels of awareness. The first level of awareness is attending to the task at hand. Whether teaching a class, writing an article, leading a meeting, or walking down a street, that is our task at hand. Our level of awareness helps us to perform that task effectively. We are undertaking that task to meet an intention. That intention could be as straightforward as navigating a crosswalk to get to the other side of the street.
Level One: The first level of awareness is attending to the task at hand. Whether teaching a class, writing an article, leading a meeting, or walking down a street, that is our task at hand. Our level of awareness helps us to perform that task effectively. We are undertaking that task to meet an intention. I taught martial arts for years. When I was training to be an instructor, my teacher had me develop a lesson plan. Yes, my training required that I build a lesson plan for my classes. Each night we reviewed my lesson plan before class. He adjusted it here and there. Once he was satisfied with my plan, I taught the class. After I finished the class, we would again sit together and do a critique of the class. This effort continued until I demonstrated competency in teaching my classes. That was only level one.
Level Two: Multitasking, per more recent studies, is at best a misnomer and at most a myth. Rather when we say we are multitasking, we are actually rapidly task switching. Our working memory, much like a computer RAM, is only capable of dealing with the immediate task at hand. We ‘multitask’ by rapidly switching from task to task. Extending our awareness can be done by developing a depth of experience or expertise that allows us to complete that task with enough contextual awareness that we can customize our actions to meet the unique contours of the moment.
Once I demonstrated competency in teaching my class as a monolith, my teacher upped the game. Next, as we reviewed my lesson plan, he prompted me to customize it to the class. What were the implications of that lesson plan on the more experienced students versus the beginners. What were the assignment differences between belt levels? Our belts were not different colors to indicate levels. Rather, a section of the belt would be colored black for each level of achievement. There were six sections before achieving black belt. Lesson plan assignments had increasing levels of sophistication and difficulty for each section.
Level Three: That extension of sophisticated understanding continues to get more individual and personal. Once I mastered section-level assignments, he challenged me to customize the lesson per individual. Did a student have an injury that required an assignment adjustment? Did they have a particular strength to work with? Did they have a specific short-term goal that they were working on? Did they have a specific weakness that needed to be shored up? Before I achieved black belt I had trouble falling. Gravity worked fine. My body, when airborne, would quickly find the ground. But I was graceless in my landings which could eventually lead to an injury. So, while everyone else practiced falling on a mat, I had to practice my falls on hard surfaces. Needless to say, I became an expert faller quickly after my falling assignments were ‘customized’.
Level Four: Switching slows all task efforts and impacts the quality of each effort. Managing multiple tasks must be thought about in this context. To ensure the efficiency and efficacy of each task we must do more than just switch. We must switch ensuring that we have a structure in place to maintain the momentum while we are focused elsewhere.
At that point, I had become quite competent at managing a class with all its intricacies. In our school, we had two separate classrooms and typically had more than one class at a time scheduled. Since I was able to manage a class, why not two? I had to learn how to circulate between rooms, assign a set of activities, and lean on the more experienced students to help move the exercise along while I was attending to the class.
Level Five: Managing multiple tasks must be thought about in this context. To ensure the efficiency and efficacy of each task, we must do more than just switch. We must switch and ensure that we have a structure in place to maintain the momentum while we are focused elsewhere. In the example of teaching multiple classes, I left a senior student to lead the effort with clear instructions for what to do, where to end, and when they should reach out to me. This structure allowed me to move through multiple activities more like an orchestra conductor than a multitasker.
Once I became comfortable rotating between classes, my teacher added managing our lobby, greeting visitors, providing demonstrations, and selling new memberships while teaching my classes. This broad coverage required me to be agile with both classes and the lobby to deal with unexpected emerging situations with shifting lesson plans and delegation to more senior students.
Level Six: Multiple task management allowed me to stretch my awareness outside of the urgent activities around me and extend it to contextual activities, such as what was happening outside of the school.
Finally, I was required to, anytime I was asked to report on what was going on outside the storefront on the sidewalk and the street. The biggest challenge with that assessment is that our entire front window was painted over. I had to depend on what I could hear and my knowledge of the neighborhood to build in that level of awareness.
That type of training was designed to do multiple things. The primary thing was to substantially and comprehensively increase my awareness to take in the thing I was focused on [teaching class], add deep nuance to that focus [individually customized lesson plans], add multiple points of focus [teaching multiple classes and lobby management], and create situational awareness of context using all my senses, [knowing what’s going on outside].
By the time I was a veteran instructor, my situational awareness was through the roof. This layered approach to awareness is now an embedded feature in my life.
Establishing Your Intention
Now that you have brought your full presence and awareness to your moment, what are you going to do with it? Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are always working toward something. To operate without conscious intention is tantamount to driving a car with the windshield covered. At best, if we are leaning on past experience, we are navigating using our rearview mirrors. We will definitely arrive at a destination which may or may not be where we want to be. And we may do a lot of damage along the way.
Presence and awareness provide a mighty tool into our lives. It makes sense that we also want to make our intentions… with awareness. Setting our intention means that we anticipate a desired outcome and that we ‘intend’ for that outcome to manifest. We are intending a future reality. That future reality that occurs via our efforts and behaviors. Thus, setting an intention establishes a gap which is filled with our actions. Our desired outcome and set-intention around it also unveils the journey we must take to achieve it.
Journeys are beset with adventure. There will be risks and potential dangers. What if we are not prepared for the journey? What if we do not have the necessary skills or capabilities to prevail in such an undertaking? What if we are not up to the task at hand? Many avoid setting large goals for risk of failure, or the difficulties that it will present. The Shire folk in J.R.R. Tolkein’s “The Hobbit ‘’ were cut of this cloth. When Gandalf the Wizard urged Bilbo to join a company of dwarves on an adventure, Bilbo dismissed the idea.
“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them”
Unconditional Commitment
In setting an intention you are establishing a journey beset with adventures that you may or may not be ready to deal with. To successfully navigate the unknown in front of us, the most powerful thing we can do is commit to it. Many folks make commitments with unspoken ‘unless’s’ and/or ‘until’s’. That is, their commitment is conditional. It has a built-in exit strategy or strategies. That is not what we are referring to as a commitment here. Rather, we are talking about unconditional commitment. We are committing to our desired outcome no matter what happens, and making it possible through intentional actions.
Hernán Cortés arrived in the “New World” in the year 1519, with 600 men, and upon arrival, made history by burning his ships. This sent a clear message to his men. There is no turning back! In burning those ships, Cortés made an unconditional commitment to conquer the new world with no safety net or exit strategy.
To that end, unconditional commitment is patient, resourceful and relentless. It can endure setbacks and failures. Like water, it will seek out and exploit the cracks in the rock wall of challenges confronting us. It finds novel ways around immovable problems. It is relentless in the pursuit of our commitment.
This sort of unconditional commitment changes our relationship to the intended outcome and journey towards it. It also changes us fundamentally. If we are unconditionally committed to an outcome beyond our capabilities, part of the effort to achieve that outcome is to rebuild ourselves into the person who can successfully achieve an outcome. In committing to an outcome, we are embracing our own changes to come. More about our internal changes to come later.
If you have never experienced unconditional commitment, start small. Choose to be unconditionally committed to something for a day. Say, unconditionally, commit yourself to be kind and generous with everyone you meet for one day. Undoubtedly, someone will test your resolve. A family member’s annoying behavior. A fellow commute passenger, oblivious to those around them, taking more space than they need. A store patron pitching a fit to get what they want. What internal depths do you have to plumb to be generous and kind to these people.
Setting Your Focus
In my article, “What’s Your Purpose?” I talked about focusing ourselves on things that are most precious to us. Here I will take a more tactical approach to discussing focus. Daily we are inundated with a million and one things that demand our attention. Choosing which of those things to focus on frames the quality of our lives and our ability to move forward towards our intentions. In his 1989 groundbreaking book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey introduced the concept of urgent vs. important activities, creating the four quadrant model.
This four quadrants model is premised on focusing on the most important aspects or priorities to achieve desired outcomes, which means spending most of our time in quadrants 1 and 2 while dedicating only the time as necessary to quadrant 3. Our intended outcome establishes what’s important for us and gives us our priorities. The quadrant model tells us where to focus including our own personal development.
Embracing the Change
When Gandalf first proposed an adventure to Bilbo, like any respectable hobbit, Bilbo was reflexively resistant.
“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to tea — any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Goodbye!”
Yet he reluctantly went, initially focusing on the comforts that he missed. Yet, as the adventure unfolded, Bilbo changed. The adventure changed him. His companions shifted from seeing him as inept and a burden to an important member of the company.
“”He was in fact held by the others to be a very useful member of the party. Indeed, they were all now more prepared to believe that he had some wits, as well as luck and a quiet voice.”
He began to see himself in a different light, no longer the sedentary, respectable Shire hobbit. Bilbo’s relationship with adventure, what it means to him and his part in it was evolving. He voiced that change in self-identity to Gollum during their riddle exchange.
“”I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number.”
Ultimately, the adventure changed him in fundamental ways.
“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”
Bilbo’s fundamental character was irrevocably changed by the adventure. He eventually embraced that change. Adventures change us. Grand adventures can radically change us. So, one way to look at setting an unconditional commitment is creating a bargain with ourselves to accept the change it will make in us. Additionally, the adventure itself and how we relate to it will flavor our experience.
How Are You Experiencing the Journey?
At the beginning of the journey, Bilbo was miserable. He did not want to be removed from his comfortable existence. Over time, he embraced the adventure and his role in it. When he did, the adventure became more positive. Finally, it became a desirable experience, which he pursued.
If we make an unconditional commitment, we are most likely to do it in an arena for which we have passion, or at least for which we believe we will develop a passion. However, passion for the intended outcome is not the only thing that informs our experience. Our unconditional commitment to the cause will also flavor our experience of the journey. If we are unconditionally committed, then we focus ourselves on what works or how we can make it better rather than focusing on what does not work. Unconditional commitment wires us to focus on what is positive or changeable rather than on what does not work or is missing. To that end, both the desired outcome and our commitment to the journey informs our experience.
Surrendering to our journey will vastly improve our experience of the journey as well as the likelihood of a successful outcome.
Takeaways
Part of living a regret-free life is to be all in on your life. Easy to say. Incredibly difficult to achieve. Being all in requires a set of practices. These practices, if maintained on the whole, will radically improve your life experience, bring passion and juiciness into your everyday existence, and make you feel fulfilled in most aspects of your life.
Getting Intensely Present
Intense presence infers that our full attention is in the ‘now’. We are not distracted by memories of our past or dreams of the future. Our absolute and undivided attention is right here, right now. People use various techniques to ‘get present’. I mentioned some of my favorite things earlier. Additional practices might include, mindful eating, creative activities, journaling, physical exercise, dispassionate observation [observation without judgment], doing puzzles and games, pet care, cooking, and gardening. All of these methods I have used to help me mentally quiet down and shift myself to the present. Listening is only one way that intense presence manifests. It also manifests in rapid yet informed decision making, calm and actions in a moment of crisis, broadened situational awareness, general unflappability, and a thousand other behaviors. This level of presence establishes intense attentiveness.
Mastering Awareness
Mastering awareness involves operating at multiple levels. The first level is focusing on the immediate task to deliver your best effort. Driving in traffic, public speaking, performing an art piece, building an analysis, programming, fine mechanical work, and proofreading are all examples of tasks that require a high degree of focus. This level of awareness is crucial for performing tasks effectively to meet specific intentions. Extending our awareness comes from developing expertise that allows us to adapt actions to the unique circumstances of each moment, like customizing a lesson to fit individual student needs. The next level involves managing multiple tasks, which recent studies suggest is actually rapid task switching rather than true multitasking. Our working memory can only handle one task at a time, and switching between tasks slows efforts and reduces quality. To manage multiple tasks efficiently, we need a structure to maintain momentum even when our focus shifts. For example, when teaching multiple classes, I delegated responsibilities to a senior student with clear instructions, allowing me to oversee various activities like an orchestra conductor, thus stretching my awareness beyond immediate tasks to broader contextual activities.
Establishing Your Intentions
Setting our intention means that we anticipate a desired outcome and that we ‘intend’ for that outcome to manifest. We are intending a future reality. That future reality that occurs via our efforts and behaviors. Thus setting an intention establishes a gap which is filled with our actions. Unconditional commitment is the pinnacle of commitments, in which we make our commitment with no hedges or safety net. We are committed regardless of the challenges, level of difficulty, or support available. If we make that level of commitment we need to be patient, resourceful, and tenacious.
Embracing the Change
Experience changes us. Experiences in new arenas pull us out of our comfort zone and force us to develop new skills, knowledge and points of view that help us to effectively cope with new situations and take on new challenges. Adventures are chock full of new experiences. And, if we are taking on these adventures with an intended outcome for which we are unconditionally committed, that shift in us is likely to be substantial. That internal change is part of the journey, and often fundamental to success. Surrender to those changes and your experience of the journey will vastly improve as well as the likelihood of success.