Why right now is so important to me
Mindfulness, namely being in the present, is really important to me. I can only control the past by being here right now and creating the past. I can only affect the future by being here right now and creating (some of) my future. I like thinking about mindfulness because it is about both the agency we have and the forces of the world that are out of our control.
I created my sober present by being a drinker and then deciding not to drink in that present. I don’t mean deciding to be sober; I mean deciding not to drink at that very moment. Again and again and again. I did that by putting up guardrails like going to bed early or not going to an event where I knew it would be easy to decide to “just have one.”
It was really fucking difficult.
I had to conserve my energy enough to be able to make those micro decisions, and I had to be in the moment to make decisions to conserve that energy. I would say “no” to a responsibility that I knew would sap my energy and make future me (in the space of minutes or hours) more vulnerable to deciding to drink in minutes or hours. I had to make a decision to go to bed “early” to eight hours of sleep (also really fucking difficult) so that the next day I would have enough energy to keep my guardrails up. I had to live in each moment the best I could to sustain the little energy I had.
I had to rage against the thought “I can start tomorrow.” I made myself say “I can start RIGHT NOW.” Today, in my everyday sober life, I still struggle with starting RIGHT NOW. I start right now when I walk the dog when the weather is shitty, or when the sink is full of dishes, or when I have to have a difficult conversation with someone. Say what you will about the corporate slogan “Just Do It,” but it is the essence of shifting the mind to the present and beginning.
I do dwell on the past and I think about the future, but my relationship with both of those concepts changed a lot when I was struggling with getting sober.
The past is easy to frame as a series of events, both good and bad (it’s easy to forget the middling bits) that I might wish to carefully edit, just keeping the good, and adding in a lot more good. I’m not going to get into the butterfly effect science fiction scenario of where that would leave me. Similarly, the future would be similarly easy to frame as the best possible outcome of my current really awesome decisions. Again, fiction. As Vimalasara said in a guided meditation, indelibly branded in my auditory memory, “all plans are provisional.” Circumstances and uncontrollable events guide our future much more than we do.
I saw a really cool drawing by the guy who does “Wait But Why” (I think) that showed a tree of the millions of possible decisions one could have made and traced the path that led to RIGHT NOW. It was in the context of people lamenting “what could have been.” The drawing then showed that from RIGHT NOW there are a million more potential paths to take. I think about this drawing a lot. I tried to find it once, but honestly I don’t need it anymore (but if you find it please send it to me).
Amid all this speculative fiction, I am here right now. Right now I prepare for tomorrow. I ground some coffee and set up my cold brew for the morning. Future me will smile at past me. I am writing this note to you and I will schedule it to be with you tomorrow morning, hopefully building more groundwork for my future recovery coaching. I also just ate a half-pint of Ben & Jerry’s, and my near-future trying-to-sleep David will regret that.
I have learned scaffolding to help when RIGHT NOW isn’t happening very smoothly.
When I feel like I can’t meditate, I take a minute to write down all the things I think should be doing instead, then I do a guided meditation and let someone else tell me what to do.
When I feel overwhelmed by unexpected requests, I say “no.”
When I feel overwhelmed by a planned social event, I say “I can’t make it. I’m really sorry.”
When those dishes are piled too high and the kitchen is impossible, I put on some really fucking loud music and do those fucking dishes properly.
When I’m feeling like the thing that I really wanted to do (develop film, take a nap) is being crowded out by other people’s requests or needs, I tell those people that the thing I want to do is really important for me to do right now. (Note that sometimes “those people” are also me getting in the way of my own joy)
I also want to talk about how being present makes me more receptive to everyday magic, but I’m going to punt that to another day. I do need to get my eight hours.
I love you,
David
