What a giant rock we must live under if we haven’t yet heard about living “in the moment” or what author Eckhart Tolle calls “living in the Now.”

I have no quibble with the recommendation; it’s just wonderful counsel from my vantage point. The question that has been confusing to me is: What is a moment?

I know a minute is a precise measurement of time but a moment isn’t as easily defined.

“We had a moment” is a line we’ve heard many times from TV or movies or from a friend or family member. It attempts to describe an experience someone had within a very non-specific time frame. Again, what is a moment?

I’m certain there are multiple answers to the question but here’s one I’ve recently come up with that answers the question for me.

A moment is the time your attention is on something.

The minute your attention goes to something else, you are in a new moment.

So “living in the moment” is a matter of where your attention is and for how long it stays there. The moment is comprised of attention. If you give your full attention to something, you’re “in the moment.”

If your attention is scattered, you’re in and out of many moments in an eye blink and can’t fully appreciate being in the moment for any appreciable amount of time.

So living in the moment is giving your attention to what’s going on now.

We are so conditioned to skipping over now to go to the past or the future that it seems foreign at first to stay focused on right now. It takes vigilant noticing of where our attention is. At first, it takes discipline to get us to stay in the moment. With practice, it starts to become a habit – one worth cultivating.

Life only happens inside of a moment. If you’re not giving it your attention, life is passing you by. Without living in the moment, you can only talk about life rather than live it.

So if you want to remain a bystanding reporter on your life, keep jumping out of the moment. If you want to actually participate in your life, give your attention to what’s happening now and actually experience life.

Here’s our homework assignment: We can create more fulling moments in our life, in a moment’s notice, just by shifting our attention to what is happening now.

All the best,

John