Reflections and Resolutions
The great poet Hafiz said six hundred years ago
“Time is the shop where everyone works hard to build enough love to break the
shackle”
January 6, 2013, the holidays
are officially over. On the weekly CBS news program, Sunday Morning, host Charles Osgood said that he would be
turning 80 this week. He joins the more than 4 million Octogenarians (men and
women over the age of 80) in the United States. Osgood played the piano and
sang a moving song about coming to terms with experience of ageing, the passage
of time, and wisdom. Of the countless people on television he is one that I most
admire. He appears to be someone who lives in the present moment experiencing
the vicissitudes of the world with a touch of humor.
As I
watched this program, which I look forward to each week, I simultaneously checked
my email, read a student thesis paper, and glanced at an article in the Sunday
morning newspaper. Multi-tasking has become so much a part of our lives that I
did not notice that in the hour and a half that passed, I hadn’t bothered to
reflect on the just ended first week of 2013.
The
holidays tend to be filled with multi-faceted pleasures, anxieties,
and expenses. It is a time when we contemplate the past, the present and and
the future. For me it was a bittersweet holiday--visits to and from family and
friends, spending time with my children, mother, siblings, cousins, and
friends. I ate good food, drank some good wine, saw a memorable film (Lincoln) a read good book (The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton), took long
walks, and thought about how I might to do everything better next year.
My resolutions are like those
of most other people. I want to exercise
more, be healthier, kinder, and more patient.
In order to accomplish these modest goals, I want to have a deeper sense
of the moments of my life. I do not want reach the age of 80 and wonder with
regret what happened to the past 20 years.
The events of 2012, the loss of my father, the wedding of my daughter, a
health concern, the fast pace of work; make my plans and resolutions for the New
Year more urgent and meaningful. My reflections of on the old year and plans
for the New Year increase my awareness of age and aging, of the passage of time.
Another year has passed--all too quickly. I may not be able to slow down the
sweep of time but I can become more mindful of its passing.
In recent years psychology
has turned its attention to the notion of mindfulness, which has become a popular
topic in research and in therapy. Mindfulness refers to a cognitive state in
which we are focused on the present. It is a state in which we are aware of our
thoughts and feelings, but avoid judging them.
These ideas, of course, are not new. They have long been present in Eastern
religious and philosophical traditions. They are become increasingly relevant,
however, in our fast paced world. In a world of multi-tasking most of us are rarely living in the present
moment. We eat while we watch TV or read.
We text as we watch TV. We talk on the phone as we cook. We send incessant
text messages or read Facebook at home at social gatherers or in restaurants.
As a professor I have endlessly remind my students that they need to pay
attention in class. It is not OK to text or surf the Web when they are sitting
in my classes.
Social Psychologist Ellen Langer was one of the first scholars to
write about mindfulness and aging. Even so, the benefits of “mindful”
practices have long been recognized by nearly every religious tradition. Even thought they date back for thousands of
years, American psychologists have only recent begun to focus on the impact of
mindfulness on psychological well-being. By the same token it is only recently
that therapists have begun to incorporate mindfulness into their treatment
plans.
The new focus on mindfulness, which has been called the “third
wave” in psychological practice, has compelled therapists to help their clients
to develop skills that can help them to be present in their day-to-day, moment-to-moment
experiences.
It is not easy to be
present in the moment, however. In her books, Mindfulness (2000) and Counterclockwise
(2009), Ellen Langer says that mindfulness is “a flexible state of mind in
which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive
to context.” When we are mindless, which is far more typical in contemporary
social life, Langer goes on to suggest, mindlessness, we “act according to the
sense our behavior made in the past, rather than the present ... we are stuck
in a single, rigid perspective and we are oblivious to alternative ways of
knowing.” (Langer, 2000, 2009).
Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the leading scholars of mindfulness argues that
being in the moment can create an openness that enables us to enjoy the present.
The present is, after all, all we really have.
We plan for it, work toward it, and ruminate about it. In our contemporary zeal we too often do too
much to control our lives. My resolutions for 2013 are to be
more mindful, to limit multi-tasking, to listen intently, to pay attention, to
be open and flexible, to travel and see more of the world, to try to see the
lights side of life. What are your resolutions?
“Why not sing and dance”? Hafiz (Persian poet who lived from 1320-1389)
