[From Marsha\u2026..long ago when the children were infants and toddlers, it took a lot to keep up with their needs and safety and also take care of cooking, cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping.\u00a0 I just took care of what I could and learned to leave some things undone\u2014sometimes for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then a few years ago when I was job hunting, I saw the phrase \u2018must be able to multitask\u2019.\u00a0 That sounded like a good thing at the time and something to develop to be more employable; although I later suspected that the employer wanted to be able to get more work from an employee to reduce the number of people who needed to be paid.<\/p>\n
And I have begun to re-evaluate this multi-tasking idea with the teaching ideas of being in the present moment.\u00a0 And so here is an excerpt that explains that a lot better than I can.]<\/p>\n
Question from the audience:<\/p>\n
(What\u2019s the purpose if you\u2019re only going to understand this moment\u2014there\u2019s no place to go and what would be the purpose?)<\/p>\n
Because you\u2019re thinking that without a future there is no purpose, right?<\/p>\n
(What\u2019s the purpose of getting into an automobile if you\u2019re going somewhere if your only purpose is to see the present moment\u2026.and he goes on and on\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..)<\/p>\n
My teacher says:<\/p>\n
Suppose you got in the automobile; and you were only interested in getting to Provo.\u00a0 So you had your attention strictly on what you were going to do when you got there?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Are you paying attention to your driving and the cars around you if you are thinking about what you are going to do there; or are you paying only a very small attention to the driving and a lot of attention to what you\u2019re going to do in Provo.<\/p>\n
(Either way.)<\/p>\n
You\u2019re attention is divided up\u2014I\u2019d rather not drive with you if you don\u2019t mind because your attention is all split up; and you\u2019re not paying very good attention to the highway.\u00a0 What\u2019s happening on the highway requires 100% of attention\u2014changes can occur very quickly and the road become instantaneously dangerous.<\/p>\n
(I doubt that would ever happen though.)<\/p>\n
Is it possible that we want to look at things into the future, and we\u2019re not willing to look at n0w?<\/p>\n
When is it that you do something?<\/p>\n
(Now.)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always now.\u00a0 If we do something now–this now is a fluid thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a disconnected spot.\u00a0 And it\u2019s possible, that if you live in present time that you would be far more efficient in each new direction rather than trying to live in many different places at the same time.\u00a0 You mentioned a while ago about a limited attention span, and it, truly, is rather limited.\u00a0 So, if you have your attention on Provo, on the highway, on something that went on yesterday and something that might happen next week, your attention is scattered until there is very little of it anywhere.<\/p>\n
Now if it is all in the present moment without any struggle, this moment may be much fuller.\u00a0 Every moment leads to another moment, right?\u00a0 And if a person lived in present time, which is always now, they would find that their efficiency and memory steps up many hundreds of percentage points at once.<\/p>\n
Of course most people\u2019s minds is scattered in many places; and that\u2019s why that statement you made that the attention span is limited is correct.<\/p>\n
So consequently the attention is always bouncing from one of these things to another, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 But it can be all one and in the present time.\u00a0 The present moment is ever changing, so the attention would be very expanded over what it generally is\u2014could that be possible?<\/p>\n
So is it possible that living in the present moment might take care of all the other moments quite well?\u00a0 When one is not living in the present moment at all, precious little attention is on the present moment–it\u2019s on what will happen, what did happen, what he said, what she did, what I must or should do until there is very little attention paid to this moment.\u00a0 So the sequence is in chaos.<\/p>\n
This is a little story I told some time or other, and it\u2019s a true one.\u00a0 I went into a lady\u2019s house one time and the kitchen was in a literal chaos–including her\u2014she was perspiring and quite rattled.\u00a0 The oven had black smoke billowing out of it\u2014there was obviously something burning.\u00a0 She had just dropped a head of lettuce on the floor and was chasing it, and the place was quite cluttered.\u00a0 I asked my favorite question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
She implied that I was a blankity-blank idiot for asking, but she said, \u201cI\u2019m trying to get dinner on the table.\u201d\u00a0 Her attention was getting dinner on the table\u2014the end result.<\/p>\n
A few days later I was in another home and the contrast was quite visible to me.\u00a0 The lady was all dressed up and she had on a pretty little apron.\u00a0 She was making salad\u2014the oven was lighted and everything looked under control.\u00a0 The little pots were sitting on burners bubbling away.\u00a0 And so I asked my little question again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cI\u2019m cooking dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now she was in present time, the other woman was out of time.\u00a0 The other lady was trying to get to the conclusion without taking the logical step by step process as it comes along in daily living.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019m sure that dinner got on the table in a much more enjoyable fashion in the second home and also much more efficiently because it was the logical outcome of what she was doing\u2014she was living in the moment.\u00a0 Each moment led to dinner on the table–and it looked like it would be a much more peaceful and joyful dinner in that house.<\/p>\n
FYI, I have also put this Blog Entry on the EXCERPTS page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[From Marsha\u2026..long ago when the children were infants and toddlers, it took a lot to keep up with their needs and safety and also take care of cooking, cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping.\u00a0 I just took care of what I … Continue reading