Sinking Teeth Into The Present
Now is the only time we really have.
I wouldn’t pretend I’ve got things together in this day and age where hustle seems to rule the roost. I work a full-time job as a scientist and professor; I am a mom to a seven-year-old and two fur babies; I am a daughter who is increasingly anxious as I watch my parents age; and somewhere in between, I am a wife and partner too.
I am immensely grateful that I don’t do it all by myself. I have a loving and supportive husband and can afford full-time childcare, which is precious, covering the hours trickling outside school or activities for our daughter, given the time-intensive and stressful nature of jobs in our household.
But it does not mean I don’t struggle with overwhelm, the fear of missing out but most with living like happiness is anywhere but here.
I have been worse though, mired in lists of goals, guzzling down the advice of productivity and time-management pundits only for all of it to vaporize into a haze, leaving the residue of a piercing memory that hounded me: the present was not enough if I was seeking the rewards that I was.
I deluded myself, believing that the hourglass, now transformed into minuscule icons that fit in the palm of my hands, was improving my life by reminding me to:
- Drink water.
- Get up from my workstation every couple of hours.
- Look up from the screens and take a break every 25 minutes.
I marveled at the work ethics of colleagues who got to work at 4 AM, got back home in the late afternoon to tend to kids, and resumed work past their bedtime. Their sacrifice and self-deprecation seemed glorious and a badge of being devoted to the path to success.
I never stopped to ask: Were they happy? What was life really like for them when no one was watching?
For the better part of my almost 42 years on this planet, I lived like I was scampering across the perimeter of my life, returning serve to a tennis ball machine that never stopped spewing goals, tasks, and dreams.
But no matter how much I got done, there was always more.
Unlike in stories, there wasn’t a pivotal incident when I finally realized that this wasn’t working for me.
I think I grew tired of living in waiting. This couldn’t be all life was: longing and slotting minutes into buckets of productivity.
I craved happiness from everyday nothingness, from gratitude that I was even here occupying space and time in the incomprehensibly vast landscape of the universe, from letting myself slip into pockets of time every day deeply as I worked at forging the next link that I had envisioned towards my dreams.
There is no way of knowing the value of our actions at the moment. I have plotted my way to a dream, only for it to be brutally crushed. I have wept at the unfairness of life when it thwarted my hopes. They didn’t care for my sleepless nights toiling, the playdates I missed with my daughter, or the weeks and months that blended into one unbroken silence as I isolated myself mentally in pursuit of an ambition.
I now know that I was mistaken, for the pursuit in itself was not a source of joy and pride. Because when that is, it does not deprive but refills your cup. It joins you to your tribe, and the collective spirit is what helps you survive the dark trenches. It helps you connect the dots because they only form a bridge to reason backward.
It is not that all plans are a waste, because who can resist some scheming in life? The world has so much to offer! And if you are anything like me, you probably want to devour a big slice of it, maybe two. So I haven’t abandoned dreaming or planning. But I hold this tad loosely, amenable to be moulded by the universe in ways that may not make sense today, but I know will in the future.
Most of all, I am awake to the present and opening my heart to feel love, contentment, camaraderie, disappointment, heartbreak, and whatever else it carries as the bounties of a life lived well.
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