I have a confession to make.

I’m a hypocrite. An unintentional one, but a hypocrite none-the-less.

Since starting my podcast in 2014, I have ended every one of my 55 shows with some version of “make the most of every moment, for it’s the only moment you’ve got.”

By that I mean, be present in your life, aware of, and better yet loving, what’s happening with you right now. Be in the moment.

The wise Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh put it this way. When asked, “Master, what is a Buddhist?” he responded, “One who breathes, eats, and walks.” The baffled student then said, “But Master! Everyone breathes, eats, and walks!”

“Ah yes,“ said the Master. “But the Buddhist knows he is breathing, knows he is eating, and knows he is walking.”

Wisdom.

I can’t tell you how many times I have grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl and gobbled it down without tasting a single bite. I am unaware.

Every day I try to sit and meditate for 20 minutes. Like a puppy that keeps straying off, my mind wanders terribly. I must chase it down again and again from the hinterlands of my worries and anxieties, my plans, regrets, hopes and intentions, and everything else that occupies my over-active monkey brain, even in my sleep.

In those 20 minutes, I slow my breathing down to a rate of about 10 breaths a minute. That’s 200 breaths over the course of my “meditation.” One would think that I could be present for a quarter of those, maybe even a half, but it is not unusual for me to be off in the weeds for 199 breaths and present for only one.

But you know? I am not discouraged. I keep at it ~ every day if I can, and throughout my day ~ waiting in line, washing the dishes, eating an apple. For as the great Eckhart Tolle wisely said:

One conscious breath, in and out, is a meditation.

One. Just one. Tomorrow maybe I’ll get two. That’s progress.

So when I say, “make the most of every moment“ ~ please understand ~ I am a hypocrite working hard to live up to his rhetoric…one breath at a time.

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