There is a favorite saying of mine "You should meditate for 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy, then you should meditate for an hour."
The reality is that unless you're a monk or yogi finding that time is hard, it feels next to impossible. But if we make it a priority we can find the time. I found the time by meditating before I sleep. I usually meditate for 40 minutes. There is a song I listen to that is 20 minutes long. So I listen twice then go to sleep. Many times I fall to sleep before the song ends the second time.
The point is not to do what works for me but to find a way that works for you. Everyone's lives are different and there is no one size fits all pattern to follow.
The reason I bring up meditation is because, along with daily prayer, it has allowed me to feel more inner peace and tranquility. Both practices have enhanced my calm and ability to be present and in the moment rather than being preoccupied with the future and the past.
The Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most about humanity and he said "Man. Because he sacrificed his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die and then dies never having really lived."
In the rat race that is modern life we too often fall into the trap of being so anxious about the future and so attached to the past that we never really live in the moment. I realized I was living my life on auto pilot never really living because I was always telling myself that I would be happy when I got the next job or next promotion or a better car or a bigger apartment. And yet when those things happened I never truly enjoyed them because I was focused on the next goal and the goal after that. That mindset prevents us from enjoying the present.
If we can't find happiness in the present, if happiness is always somewhere else, it will never be where we are.
Peace is not a life without obstacles, it is found within and allows us to be at peace in the midst of chaos.
My wife has lupus, an autoimmune disease, that causes many complications, pain and makes her susceptible to many colds and infections.
She soldiers through her pain and sickness until she can't work or function. Her body forces her to rest and that's usually the only way she will. The biggest problem is that that choice to push through often makes her crash worse than it would have been if she would just listen to her body and rest when she should.
I admire her strength but her stubbornness is agrivating at times.
I see many people who only rest when their body completely shuts down. I think learning to be at peace in the moment can help us live life better. It can help us enjoy the moment so much that we stop living in the past or in the future. We must listen to our bodies and eat when needed or rest when needed rather than push through. How can we enjoy life when we sacrifice our physical and mental health?
We have a bad habit of extremism. We eat too much food and too much unhealthy food. We don't excercise enough or we excercise too much. We drink too much soda or energy drinks but not enough water.
Not everyone does too much of the bad and not enough good but I see overindulgences frequently and daily.
We talk too much but listen too seldom. We hate too often and love too seldom. We have added years to life but not life to years.
But through meditation and prayer we can add life to our years. With both practices we can nourish and strengthen our sense of joy, peace and compassion as well as patience.
You can meditate and pray while in a bath, you can pray for a minute or two while on lunch and breaks. We can't find the time unless we make the time. We can burn the candle at both ends or we can moderate our lives and burn longer and much brighter.
The quality of our lives, of our memories and the quality of our relationships will be determined by the quality of how we lived our lives and how present we were in the moments we remember from our lives. We don't remember years, months or days. We remember moments. And if we are present in those moments the quality of those moments will be spectacular.
Modern life is fast but we would do better to slow down and enjoy the ride rather than hurry through our one shot in this mortal life.
