“The bell doesn’t dismiss you. I do.”
The famous quip from teachers to a class of students too eager to leave. And when the bell rings, the silent hallway instantly fills with the sounds of being pushed back, students grabbing their bags, and filling the hallways in a rush to get out of their class. A rush to what’s next. Never once pausing to savor the current moment. Indeed, our high school’s atmosphere is always about the next thing — and the next, and the one after that. One may call it looking forward, yet it also often seems like looking beyond. Like craning your neck to look beyond the person who you’re conversing with.
Our obsession with what’s next pulls us away from the present. And when there’s a hundred and one things to do, getting to the next item on our evergrowing to-do list may seem like the most important priority in the present. But the here and now is fundamentally special. It is something that never comes back. There will always be tomorrow — and the day after. But never today again. Today is unique. Today, once lost, can only be seen in hindsight.
To value the present moment is not a skill that should be taken lightly. Nor is it cultivated easily. To slow down and think in the moment is something that is often lost upon us. We think of the present as being a task already completed — something already checked off our list — and then we allow our mind to be occupied with what’s next. And the next day, we are torn between the past and the future. We are feeble of mind when it comes to recalling our experiences in just the days past, because we were never really there. We were here — in the future — and now all we can is look back. And as much as we would like to look back fondly and bask in the warmth of our experiences, we find ourselves trapped in a loop. A hamster wheel that goes forth. Because our experiences, in the absence of being experienced, are nothing but time in passing.