Are you present?

Of all the school of thoughts on how to live your life well and again the list goes on, one of my favourite ones is being present. I will not go into the psychological theory of its benefits or the different ways of being present here as it is easy for anyone to google and you would find so much info on it. Rather, I would like to share one of my earlier encounters with being present.

When I was learning gymnastics (yes, I did a year on it), my coach was motivating all students to run, do a split and jump over a few layered brown blocks that was above my waist height level, I remember I was really clumsy, having the fear of jumping across but I took the sprint nonetheless. I ended up landing stationary on top of the block with my split legs without jumping across. My coach thought she would help me by pushing my back. Poof! I landed with the same split on the mattress in front instead of being in the close leg stand up position that one would expect. Imagine the total shock and traumatised painful split I had. I was totally present at that moment. Staying in the awkward position for a good 10 seconds, I looked totally hilarious in that frozen split position with loud laughter from the rest of the students. At that present moment, I was fully aware of the physical pain, embarrassment and disappointment with myself of not being able to jump over like the rest of the many students before me.

Perhaps, this is not the kind of typical present moment you would envisage reading. After all, who would be motivated by an unpleasant moment of life, especially be reminded of one during childhood which was like ages ago for some. But in reality, will every present moment be a pleasant one?

Being present means encompassing all, be it the good or the bad, live through the moments and be engaged with what is happening. These are momental experiences from childhood to adulthood to the senior years. Being truly aware and mindful of what is happening to yourself and even to others at that moment helps one to see more clearly and assess that present situation on how one would react next to what had happened at that present moment. It is this little window of opportunity that would help one to decide on the choices. During that 10 seconds, I decided to pick myself up and took it as a part and parcel of training. I was 8 years old then. If I had not recognise those negative feelings rationally, I would probably not have continued to finally overcome that and experience the achievements I felt the first time I managed to do a back-bend into a bridge and a handstand without assistance. All these may look insignificant from an adult perspective, but don't we all grow up from being a child and a child's experience of being present could gear one towards the choices made in later part of his or her life.

Life is precisely made up of all these little present moments - both pleasant and unpleasant ones. These "present moments" eventually made up our life and define us as who we are.