Uticopa Blog

What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep, or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
 
William Henry Davies 1871 - 1940

In this period following our January resolutions, a paradox creeps in.  Don't they push our minds away from the present?  There is nothing wrong in setting goals for yourself;  in fact, that is an excellent way to stimulate our minds to become more positive. However, by so doing, make sure that you don't lose an awareness of the here and now.

To avoid worrying too much about the future, try savouring the present. In her memoir ‘Eat, Pray, Love' Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about a friend who, whenever she sees a beautiful place, exclaims in a near panic ‘It's so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday'.  This person needed a lot of convincing that she was actually there in that beautiful place at that precise moment, so she should enjoy it right now.

It's often the case that we become so trapped in worries about the future that we forget to experience, let alone enjoy, what's happening in the present.  Whether we're eating a meal out or simply noshing on a favourite biscuit, how many of us think ‘this doesn't taste as good as last week', or ‘I'll have to get some more of these or I'll run out'.

We should all try to relish or luxuriate in the things we're doing at the present moment, whether it be taking a bath, lying in the sun or eating our favourite pastry.  Psychologists and therapists call it ‘savouring'.  The very word has onomatopoeic resonances. Try saying the word aloud. Not only does it make us salivate automatically about something enjoyed, but also reflects that action as being in the present.  It certainly describes a warm feeling of the senses, something to be enjoyed in the moment.

How often when seeing films set in New York do we see people rushing about the streets, eating on the hoof, dashing from one place to another.  They certainly have no time to ‘stand and stare', no doubt pushing themselves to the limit in order to achieve that elusive success in life.  But aren't they, by constantly striving for that future goal, missing out on life's pleasures in the here and now?

Stephen Schueller, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, found in a recent study that people who normally hurried through their everyday lives, experienced more joy and happiness when they took a few minutes each day to actively savour something.  The actual events could be something comparatively trivial, like walking to the bus or drinking a cup of tea, but the difference that taking their time over these things was remarkable.

Why does living in the moment make people happier?  Psychologists like Schueller will tell you that most negative thoughts concern either the past or the future - never the present.  As Mark Twain notably said ‘I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened'.  I'm sure that notable pessimists like Groucho Marx also said much the same thing.

One of the recognisable signs of anxiety and depression is catastrophizing - worrying about something that might happen.  By its very nature, worry means thinking about the future but in a negative sense.  The term for worrying about what happened yesterday is ‘ruminating' (the ‘what if' syndrome).

What is clear is that if you focus on the here and now, all that ruminating instantly stops. Savouring forces you into the present, preventing you from worrying about things that aren't there and have not happened.

As William Henry Davies so aptly put over a century ago:
What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare?