Be, Here, Now

I must confess that the clever title of this article was pinched from an advertisement for a Yoga studio near my home.

The single greatest thing which I can do to improve my life is not to eat better. It is not to go to the gym for 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week. Nor is it to organize my life or visualize my dreams.

No, I need to do something at the source which precludes all of those things. I need to strive to retain as much cognizance as possible always. Every moment that I am awake a conscious effort must be made to employ the agency which we have all been so blessed with.

My first year Math prof used to make an analogy between mental training and physical training.

When one goes to a gym to work out, he must be present in may ways if he is to enjoy a gain for his efforts. He is focused on his movements, he powers his exertions by motivating himself with visualizations, music and plain willed intensity. To realize a measurable gain in either his strength, appearance, flexibility or power, he engages himself as fully as possible. By contrast, those who go to the gym and merely perform the motions of the exercises without the commitment are most certainly doomed to be presented with disappointing results.

It is the same with our mental capacities. If we fully engage ourselves with our math homework and harness our ability to produce interest and passion, then we will be able to learn the topics and be successful. However, if students merely bumble through the problems they are presented with, then progress is slow and frustrating.

He used to say: Would you ever go to the gym, then just watch the others training? Of course not. Perhaps even more telling would be a comparison with Dance. We can watch others dance intently for long periods of time. But this will not be enough for all bt the most gifted among us to mimic the dance we are observing.

In life as I see it, success is almost always precluded by interpersonal skills. Assuming that all people have a desire to be a part of the social network and to benefit from the increased production that society's efficiencies allow. At some level, each of us is required to convince others to provide us with goods for our own comfort and sustainability. The more successful (materialistically speaking) among us, are more able to siphon larger amounts of productivity from larger pools of people.

Certainly, often people barter their technical skills for their incomes. But you cannot underestimate the massive influence of interpersonal skills here too. If your skill set is entirely technical, you must ensure you are perfect always, otherwise you will find yourself replaced with someone more pleasant.

Being more analytical than social, I am always a little taken aback when I see a friend make a decision with massive financial impact based on a social event with another person who is not a part of their social circle, and that they will likely never see again. As an example, just this week, a coworker walked away from a half-million dollar deal to buy a condo, because she felt that the sellers counteroffer was sufficiently high to be a "slap in the face." The counter offer was not unreasonable, it just didn' t live up to my coworkers's social expectation.

As we go along on our journey through this world, the goal for many of us is to remain happy. Surrounding ourselves with likable, positive people is key to this. Many of us have experienced the pain and emptiness which surrounds losing a loved one. Indeed, without this prime motivator, often life may seem to have lost all value.

OK, I am writing this in a completely unstructured way. Let me review where we are. We need to be in the moment to gain something of value from our time here. Zombie living has it's equivalent in exercise as sleeping. Then, I mentioned that we are reliant on others to provide us with goods. At some level, we convince others to work to produce goods and them give them to us. Further, we seem to be reliant on other people for simple happiness -- perhaps this is even the meanng of life -- the pursuit of happiness. Untennable as it may be.

Let me connect these two by relaying something which Dale Carnegie has taught me; People will like you if you are genuinely interested in them. People are obsessed with themselves. And this must be so, as they spend 24 hours a day with themselves in a constant search for improvement.

So, based on these rambling thoughts which bounce through my head lightly and with little longevity that I have come to the following conclusion: If we are present in the moment, we will be ale to interact with other people without judgment, then, we will be able to gain their insights and knowledge where possible and recruit them as allies on this journey via a genuine interest in them.