10 Ways to Slow Down, Unplug, and Live in the Moment

Culture

Oftentimes when I hang out with people, I think about all the things that I have to be doing. I am looking at my watch, worrying about the time, thinking about how I am not going to get much sleep that night, or worrying about other issues. 

When we are socializing, too often are we on our phones checking the latest posts from friends, trying to blast the latest asteroid on some game, checking up on sports updates. Too often I go somewhere and see people all on their phones, not talking to each other.

We are always constantly thinking about what happened yesterday, what is happening next week, what’s happening next year and rarely do we focus on the present — the here, the now. We need change. We need to focus on what is going on in the here and now because we have seen with recent events like , that life is too precious to be worrying about the future.

Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, that doesn’t matter, because what you know consciously is right now, what’s going on at this exact moment. I have a friend who tries to live by this philosophy that time doesn’t really exist, that there really is no today, tomorrow, or yesterday, that it is just the present and all we can do is worry about that.

Some ways that you can live in the moment:

1) Take 10 minutes each day sit in silence.

3)Have some time each day devoted to worrying about the future and the past. After you worry about it, tell yourself that you are not going to think about it anymore.

We are only a few days into the New Year, so I ask all of you to just live in the moment. Try and stop worrying about the future. The time you have to spend with people in your life is precious and amazing.

One of my favorite quotes from the musical Rent puts it perfectly:

“There’s only us, there’s only this,