EP 403: How to Accurately Measure Your Life

From a very early age we, as humans, are trained to measure our lives in really big chunks of time. We are a ‘seven-year-old’ or we are a ‘sixth grader’. We look back and say ‘sophomore year was the greatest time in my life.’ We do quarterly projections and annual audits. And all this labeling and division of time makes us believe that life happens in these huge chunks. But life doesn’t happen in decades, or years, or quarters, or seasons, or even weeks, days, or hours. Life happens in moments. More specifically, life happens in one moment: this present moment. Mindfulness is the practice of seeing that in this present moment, everything we experience - internally and externally - arises, exists for a time, and then is gone. And mindfulness asks us to meet these experiences without clinging and aversion that arise from judgment. It’s really that simple and it is every bit that profound. And when we build the skill to do this in all circumstances of our lives, all that is left is the capacity for love, generosity, and kindness. That is the dynamic nature of your existence as a human being.