What does it mean to live in the moment? Often a person's mind is not on what he is actually doing. Instead of focusing on the current meeting, a man’s mind wonders where to go for a drink after work or what to make for dinner that night.
Rather than focusing on playing a game with her children, a woman’s mind wanders to an earlier conversation with a friend.
Today’s Hectic Society Makes it Difficult to Find Peace
It's hard to focus on one item at a time. In today's hectic, multi-tasking world, people jump quickly from task to task, always worrying about what's next or dwelling on the past. People often waste "now" time, missing what is happening in the only moment that truly exists – the present moment, which is where a person finds peace.
A simple flower has no problems living in the moment, growing and dying exactly as intended, never worrying about what will happen next. Religious leaders and texts speak to this phenomenon. For example, in the Bible verses Matthew 6:28-31, Jesus asks, “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet…not even Solomon…was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field…will he not much more clothe you…”
Smelling a field of fresh wildflowers, holding a child's hand, walking barefoot on the grass – life gains meaning through the single tiny moments. Some would argue that everyone would feel more at peace by learning to live every moment to its fullest, by just being.
How to Find Peace - and Grow Closer to Spirituality Within Each Moment
How can human beings avoid losing this "now" living?
While everyone thinks about the past or the future at some point, it is possible to retain the current moment, even if just for a moment. And isn't that all that's really needed? The following four tips suggest ways to start living in the moment, helping people find peace and attain greater spirituality in everyday life:
- Being in nature helps a person live in and focus on each moment. Spiritual people often feel that being in nature brings them closer to their spirituality by demonstrating creation. As a person focuses on nature, peace overcomes her, and she becomes one with everything, living in the now.
- Reading a thought-provoking book helps a person live in the moment by losing himself in another world. When a reader becomes lost in a story, other life responsibilities take a back seat. Focusing on only one item - the words/ideas on the page - the reader momentarily steps away from the fast pace of real life and finds peace.
- Repetitive exercise helps a person’s body and mind live in the moment. Practicing mental and physical exercise is another method that can be used to live in the now. Whether practicing Yoga, lifting weights, or walking, when the muscles are taxed, the mind follows. Focusing on each individual movement forces the mind to live in that single moment with the body.
- Praying and meditating helps a person live in the moment and grow closer to God. Not only does praying bring a greater sense of spirituality for a religious individual, it also relaxes the body and mind, helping a person find peace. Meditating takes this a step further into mindfulness, becoming intensely aware of self and surroundings, senses heightened yet relaxed and peaceful.
How Living These Single Moments Helps People Find Peace in Everyday Life
At moments when a person focuses so completely on the present (whether through time in nature, reading, exercise, prayer, or some other method of living in the moment), it becomes possible to set the hectic world aside. If a person spends enough time living these moments outside of everyday responsibilities, then those moments start to stay with her, helping her find peace amidst the craziness of daily life.
Living in the moment makes a person constantly aware while at the same time feeling “above” or part of it all, like soaring in the clouds yet planted on the ground simultaneously. Living in the moment makes many problems seem less significant yet magnifies the blessings.
Eckhart Tolle, author of the books The New Earth and The Power of Now, says, “The sapling doesn't want to grow. It lives in the moment, and growing happens to it.”
Human beings can take a lesson from that sapling by living in the moment and simply letting growing happen to them. That’s the real secret to how everyone can find peace and grow closer to God - moment by moment.
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