I thought I knew what this meant, until last week. In the past when I have heard someone say “in the moment” I thought I knew what they meant. Not thinking about the past or the future and just enjoying being here and now.
Last week my mum and sister and my nephew and I spent a fantastic week at the beach. Being with a little boy who is only 2 and a half taught me the meaning of “in the moment” in a way that I have never thought about it before.
We checked in to the hotel and then headed for the beach. On the way through the lobby Riley spotted the luggage trolley, he wanted to play with that so we did for a little while. We enticed him with “let’s go to the beach”. Outside the lobby is the gardens with circular paths and steps leading up to the pool and around the gardens. Riley thought this was great; he could run around the path and down the steps and around the garden, all the time laughing and squealing with delight. He could happily have stayed there. Again we enticed him “let’s go to the beach”.
At that moment it occurred to me “that means nothing to him, he is happy right now”
Eventually we get out of the grounds of the hotel and start walking down the street. Again he is happy running ahead, investigating the phone box “can we call someone?” and anything else that took his attention.
Between us and the beach was the park. As you can imagine that was our next stop. Up and down the slippery slide, on the swing and then back to the slippery slide. Again we had to drag him away to get to the beach. He wanted to stay at the park and cried when we said “let’s go to the beach”
The beach was perfect. At this time of the afternoon the tide was out and the waves were just the right size for fun and the sun had lost some of its heat and we swam and jumped in the surf. He had a fantastic time and didn’t want to leave.
It occurred to me later that this was a perfect example of “in the moment.” At each stage Riley was in the moment; fully focused on enjoying what he was doing – when he was playing with the luggage trolley, running around the paths in the hotel, definitely happy playing in the play park.
He wasn’t really interested in “what’s next” he was having a great time right now.
I thought “this is what it means to be in the moment”; now I really understand the concept.
