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The Moment Sucks

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😬😷 ‘I know I should live in the moment but the moment fucking sucks!’ 😬😷

One of my most favourite things a client has ever said. (And also said with a lovely soft Australian accent…)

And there’s something in this. Sometimes the present moment does suck!

We see lots of stuff about how living and being present to the moment is the way to end all suffering, (along with remembering who we are, and we are all one, which I guess means there is only ever one moment too... jeez I hope the sickness isn’t everlastin…)

Anyways…

I see sometimes the current moment does, indeed, fucking suck!

Like it did a few days ago:

I went to the dentist, for a regular checkup, the dentist did that whole cleaning and scraping thing. Oh, how lovely to be able to feel, once again, the space between my teeth, but the process itself is chuffing painful! Sorry, maybe this is a ManCard revocation, but hands-up who actually enjoys having their teeth cleaned? Right! No one! Not even Rambo!

Those moments fucking suck!

In fact, being really present to the moment, the scraping, the prodding, the blood, the more I focused on what was actually happening in that moment the more it chuffing hurt!

Like - oh just focus on the pain, it will help!

Fact is, sometimes the moment does suck! Which also highlights the fallacy of all these mantras and ‘rules to live by’ that we see proliferated around these parts.

There is no single and simple way to live. If there were, don’t you think someone would have written a book about it by now, it would have been a runaway success, and all those other books in the personal development section at Barnes & Noble or Waterstones would disappear into oblivion….

Even living in the moment is not always the most helpful thing to do.

Whilst the dentist was cleaning and scraping my teeth, (and gums, FFS!) I actually counted my breathes, knowing that the last time I did that it was all over before I got to breathe number 200. Well before that. So my strategy for handling that uncomfortable situation, for handling the moment that fucking sucked, was to remember and imagine that the moment would be over soon. It was to remember that there was a future beyond the current moment.

Live in the moment? Yeah… sometimes….

There are no rules. When we define we confine. We limit the infinite freedom of life.

I’ve been on this earth half a century, and it looks to me like I know much less now than I thought I did twenty years ago. (Oh, by the way, I’m much happier now and like myself much more now than I did 20 years ago…. Proof that knowledge does not bring happiness… another post maybe…)

So, when anyone suggests to you to live in the moment, that is just that, a suggestion.

Without doing harm to yourself or others, I suggest just doing whattever helps.

Since our experience of life is only ever created through the energy of thought, and the manifestation of those thoughts are infinitely variable, in size, shape, colour, and smell, there really can never be a single strategy for you to ‘suffer less.’

We can only ever do what helps ‘in the moment.’

Aha yes, the moment….

Imagine a future, remember a past, drop everything and get present.

Yeah, those are all options.

The closer I look at this the more I’m convinced it’s not even possible to completely live in the moment, because we always bring some distant memory of a past and some imagination, some hope and fear, about the future.

Live in the moment?

Yeah, in this moment imagine whatever helps…

That might be imagining some future event, perhaps sitting on a beautiful beach with a Mojito whilst your dentist picks thorns out of his ass….

Just do whatever works.
No rules.

Loving you.
(In some moments…)

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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
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