While at the kitchen sink one evening scraping pots and pans, the aftershock of a delicious dinner, I tried thinking about anything but the task on hand. Then I recalled what I had read and what I was supposed to think about – it was mindfulness.
Mindfulness refers to a state of being fully in the present moment, with acceptance and without judgement. Scientific studies have demonstrated mindfulness practice to be a benefit to a variety of psychological and physical conditions and is increasingly being integrated into every walk of life. What next! Another nebulous mind-altering technique to focus on in the hope of making growing older more golden, cutting into time to ponder winning a big lottery, a 50-50 draw or if the Leafs might finally make the playoffs.
Mindfulness practice refers to a set of activities and exercises to experience the present moment and exclude the stream of diverse thoughts and mind-wandering that happens normally. Its goal is to maintain a non-judgmental and non-reactive state of awareness. Man, how can you be non-judgmental while scraping greasy pots and pans. To me, the dishwashing is the depths of despair and nothing will prevent me from thinking about something else.
Even the most interesting job in the world has its mundane elements. But the experts claim, “You can make things a whole lot better for yourself by treating these instances as opportunities.” They continued, “Actually, tasks that are really simple and repetitive are well-suited for working on mindfulness because it’s easier to focus 100 percent of your attention on something that’s simple than on something that’s complex.” Such mundane tasks invariably compel me to leave the present. My thoughts wander, forwards or backwards in time. But again, the experts say to focus all your attention into what you’re doing. Mindfulness is supposed to be a defense against the pressures of modern life, but in my view, it is suspiciously adding to the pressures. Surely one of the dazzling feats of the brain is to hold past, present and future thoughts to offset the tedium of working on those pots and pans, while imagining being on an exotic island or watching a golf tournament instead.
I had a part-time job once with Shoppers Drug Mart. There were some young women working there also and did they like to chat, revealing personal information that I would rather not have to overhear. The sensuous nature of some explanations embarrassed me. A particular conversation caught my full attention however while I was the furthest downstream from ‘mindfulness’ as possible. One of them said “If my husband was wearing Brut after-shave when I got home, my knees would get weak and I’d go for him like a bee after honey.” I dwelled on that gem for sure. I figured why not try Brut! I bought some after my shift, dousing onto my face and other places before I reached home. When I arrived, and greeted my wife, what I expected to happen didn’t. I was naturally disappointed in her but not as much as not being able to get my money back for the after-shave! I recall the next time I was at the kitchen sink with smarmy pots and pans, I kept wondering why it worked for her husband and not for me.
On the face of it, our lives are much more fulfilling outside of the present than in it. As anyone who has ever maintained that they will one day lose 10 pounds or enter a marathon will soon realize, we anticipate our future with more blind optimism than the reality it is likely to warrant. In my 20s, a psychic told me I was destined to be an International diplomat to a South American country. That soon dissolved. Looking back, I had hundreds of lofty expectations unrealized. But while fantasying about them, it gave me so many pleasant emotions. Imagine how dull my life would have been if I had dedicated myself to being mindful – no daydreaming, no silliness or even taking chances!
So perhaps, rather than expending our energy struggling to stay In The Moment, we should simply be grateful that our brains allow us to be elsewhere.
