The Simplicity Of Now
This Is What Life Is, The Secret, Chocolate Bars & Empty Hands
When I turned my attention back to the rugged dirt trail in front of me, I was struck...Curious
This is what life is
As I approached the seventeenth kilometre of my run, I briskly weaved through a set of old wooden farmyard gates to reroute myself homeward. Thick yellow gorse bushes to my left. To my right, three horses and their riders swiftly paced down a sand gallop with a vast sea of grass plains as their backdrop. The powerful rhythm of their cadence filled my eardrums. I looked up. The clouds had moved on, leaving a clear blue sky sitting above me, with the warm morning sun now sharing its presence. As I jogged alongside the gallop, I observed a flock of small birds on the other side of the railing, washing themselves in the shallow rain puddle that had gathered overnight. When I turned my attention back to the rugged dirt trail in front of me, I was struck by the poetry all around. I smiled and thought, this is the simplicity of now.
Curiosity for your present moment lifts the fog of thought to unveil the simplicity right before you.
Hat tip to Saul Bellow for inspiring the title of this recount of my run with his line, ‘Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.’
Conscious
The secret
“The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it and if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.”
- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Change
Chocolate bars and empty hands
Sounds ridiculous, and it is, but I have sometimes walked into a shop with every intention of buying a chocolate bar and sadly left empty-handed. Not because they had none but because of my inability to decide when faced with endless options.
Choosing between your intuition and convention can feel the same way. The pull of safety and fear of failure, combined with a multitude of potential paths, can leave you feeling strangled by the future and blind to the simplicity that the now offers. Add social media into the mix, and your decision paralysis significantly intensifies. Like me, looking at the shelves of chocolate, you stand frozen and internally agitated, second-guessing yourself as life passes you by.
The challenge is separating what doesn’t matter to you so that you can prioritise what does. The sooner you face that task, the sooner you can live simply and peacefully in the now, knowing that you are pursuing what matters while the rest is just noise you are unbothered by.
If you think my story about walking out of the shop empty-handed is sad, consider how much of a shame it would be getting to the end of your life and feeling like it wasn’t fulfilled.
How can you ensure you don’t leave the store without what you came for?
Questions like this one are part of why I created a Discord community. It’s a supportive space for sharing direct experiences and exploring what truly matters. You can join for free here.
Live Free,
Niall
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’s story is a perfect example of getting out of your own way to appreciate the simplicity of now. That is lvn’.Read more stories here.
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Love this passage: "The challenge is separating what doesn’t matter to you so that you can prioritise what does. The sooner you face that task, the sooner you can live simply and peacefully in the now, knowing that you are pursuing what matters while the rest is just noise you are unbothered by."
This is so true. A long time ago I read a book called "Getting Past OK" by Richard Brodie, which had some great exercises to discern your priorities (or "core needs" as he called them) based on how you've actually lived your life as well as hopes and aspirations. I found all that so clarifying that I expanded on his basic method in a book called "Finding Focus" (that I published on lulu.com as Kraig Brockschmidt--DM me is you'd like a free PDF copy).
Knowing what matters really does simplify so much of life, whether it be choosing a candy bar or making much more significant life decisions, like starting a family, changing jobs/retiring, changing homes, choosing where to travel, making big purchases, etc. I know it's saved me a lot of grief for most of my adult life.
Choosing the chocolate bar is more harder now than as a kid, isn’t it? I reflected how I stand in front of the refrigerator aisle, staring too long and choosing one and doubting if I chose the right one for me. God, I don’t even know if I’m still talking about chocolate. Thanks for being my muse today. Gonna do some reflection.