My son, Hyrum, often looks at my browser window and tells me, “Mom! You have too many tabs. You need to close them.” If I’m not actively at my computer, he will close them for me (argh). It’s almost like it hurts him to see multiple tabs open on my screen.
My brain often looks like my browser window with twenty things in process at one time. Even with all the studies showing us how ineffective it is to multi-task, it seems like that is what my brain is wont to do.
I can report, so far, that when I practice mindfulness (so far, I’m just using an app on my phone), I train my brain to gently come back to the moment at hand. I love that my app says that when I notice my thoughts straying to gently bring it back. There’s no berating myself for a wandering brain, just ‘gently’ training it to return to the task at hand. I have found that immediately after, I am a little more focused, but I’m also becoming more aware of when I am not focused on my task and can bring myself back to the present. It’s like closing down the browser with 3,241 tabs and opening a fresh one for the project I am currently on.
Leo Tolstoy tells a story called “The Three Questions” (I would encourage you to read it). In this story a king is on a quest to find the answer to his three most pressing questions: “How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And, what affairs are the most important and need my first attention?” He seeks out the wise hermit and asks him his questions. The hermit doesn’t answer immediately, but allows events to unfold that give the king his answer. The king does not recognize the answer, and entreats the hermit to answer him again. He expounds the answer to him and summarizes by saying, “Remember then: there is only one time that is important – now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary person is the one with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is to do that person good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life.”
Could Tolstoy have really been the father of mindfulness?
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