It’s 5.13pm, and I’ve just finished a meeting.
I’ve been in a grouchy state about work all week. I’ve no idea why. It’s been a persistent undercurrent to my mood, like a toothache of my soul. Something has been dragging me down. My daily practices like meditation and journalling have provided some respite but no insights.
I get up from my desk. I’m weary. I feel like I’m hauling myself to the kitchen to grab some water before I sit down to work again. Sitting to write my newsletter, which I normally love doing but today it feels like I’m crawling through sand.
As I turn towards the door, my whiteboard catches my eye. It sits above my desk, divided into sections for the various projects I’m juggling. Each section has a sticky note with the ‘Big Ticket’ item I need to focus on.
Every one of those sticky notes is something I’m creating, something aligned to my purpose, something that will serve others and makes me feel alive.
More importantly, every one of those sticky notes is a choice that I’ve made.
It’s a beautiful slap in the face.
One of those that the universe gives you every now and again, like looking for your keys before realising you’re already holding them in your hand.
In an instant, my perspective shifts and I’m zoomed out. I’m looking at something that represents not just things that I care about, but seeds that are being planted and fed, that may become healthy trees in 5, 10 or 20 years time.
It’s like a voice saying “Look at how you get to spend your days. Look at what you’re choosing to create. Look at how fortunate you are. What exactly do you have to be grouchy about?“
My mood lifts so quickly, I find myself grinning sheepishly.
It’s a reminder to me of how often we get caught up in the whirlpool of thoughts and emotions. And also how easily we can get lost in a narrow tunnel obsessing over what is right in front of us, when actually we’ve forgotten some important truths:
1. This isn’t anywhere near as important as you think
2. In six months time, or even in a month you won’t even remember what you were bothered by
3. In the context of your whole life, what you’re doing in this moment is probably incredible and to be truly enjoyed right now. One day, you might look back and pine for this moment.
I once heard Sam Harris describe this loss of perspective as like gazing longingly through the bars of a prison cell, only to realise that you’re on the outside looking in and all you have to do is turn around to see the freedom that always existed.
I wonder what imaginary prisons you create for yourself?
We all do it. We get lost in the moment, not in the actual reality of it, but in a skewed version of it where our mind has created something for us to get bothered by. In these moments, and in most moments, we lose any reasonable sense of perspective.
A few weeks into the first lockdown in London last year, a neighbour of mine posted in our residents WhatsApp group. “Does anyone know a bakery where I can get some sourdough?” he asked. “We’ve run out and I’m having to eat the kids’ Kingsmill bread and it’s making me totally depressed.” At first I thought it might be some artful satire but it turned out he was being serious.
Every now and then, it is helpful to imagine ourselves zoomed out from our lives, as if we’ve stepped into a hot air balloon. As we rise higher, we see further and further. We begin to think in years and decades. We might even think in generations. And we also see ourselves as part of a bigger picture, something so inexplicable and breathtaking that getting pissed off about your recent appraisal is no longer worthy of holding any space in your mind.
I read once that every astronaut in the Apollo 11 mission came back to earth and found new or renewed faith in religion, their natural response to what that they had experienced in seeing the magnificence and awe of Earth. It was their way of making sense of it all.
A few years earlier, another space mission captured the famous ‘Earthrise‘ image, which nature photographer Galen Rowell described as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken”. It was the first time we’d seen our home as a whole and fragile gem, all alone in the vastness of space. It was also a stunning reminder of the shared endeavour that is humanity living in one home.
This dreamlike contemplation might sound like the opposite of mindfulness, but in fact, stepping into your hot air balloon (or space shuttle) and taking the meta-view of your last conversation, your day, your week or even your whole life is entirely compatible seeing your present situation for what it actually is.
By considering the widest context of whatever we’re thinking about now, we’re shining a light on the reality of what this actually is.
And whatever it is, you certainly won’t experience it again. So why not appreciate it for the gift that it is?
