Malinda's TableOccasionally, I have a day where too many things go wrong. Once it was a flat tire on a dark road in Maryland at midnight, after which I got lost and was stopped for weaving on the highway by a state trooper, who helped me find my way. On another day, I dropped one of my hearing aids in my house and pulled my back out trying to find it, which I didn't. No matter what happens, I never curse myself for being stupid, or lament what happened, or even complain about my unfortunate fate. What I do is take a long breath and say, "Now what?" It is really all a person can do. I learned this from Jon Kabat-Zinn, known for his research on stress reduction and mindfulness.
Wherever You Go There You Are
Guess What? When it comes right down to it, wherever you go, there you are. Whatever you wind up doing, that’s what you’ve would up doing. Whatever you are thinking right now, That’s what’s on your mind. Where has happened to you, it has already happened. The important question is, how are you going to handle it? In other words, “Now what?” Like it or not, this moment is all we really have to work with. Yet we all too easily conduct our lives as if forgetting momentarily that we are here, where we already are, and that we are in what we are already in. In every moment, we find ourselves at the crossroad of here and now. But when the cloud of forgetfulness over where we are now sets, in, in that very moment we get lost. “Now what?” becomes a real problem. To allow ourselves to be truly in touch with where we already are, no matter where that is, we have got to pause in our experience long enough to let the present moment sink in: long enough to actually feel the present moment, to see it in its fullness, to hold it in awareness and thereby come to know and understand it better. Only then can we accept the truth of this moment of our life, learn from it, and move on.
Jon Kabat-Zinn