Be Now Here

It could have been any weekday commute, but on this chilly December morning, I rolled down the car window. The cool rush of air punched me in the face with a sobering reality. I sat in the numbing traffic on Highway 101, crawling along, stop, start, brake lights, and fifty yards of freedom to be immediately followed by the same repeating cycle. Like many drivers before, I thought about the loss of precious time while stuck in this bubble.

The trick is to break up this monotonous pattern with some clarity and fun. Blue Oyster Cults, "Don't Fear the Reaper” played on the stereo, in dire need of a volume adjustment. I turned the music up louder and louder until I heard the cowbell. More cowbell, please. I sang the words even though I didn't know them. Fellow drivers glanced over to see why my window was rolled down with my arm resting on the opening. Most of them turned their heads quickly when I looked back at them. They didn't want to make a connection.

Finally, on the last stretch of my commute, a dark-haired woman in the next lane caught my eye. I turned my head to give her a good gander and saw she was in a rapture of singing. Full animation. We gave each other a smile and a wave then we were back to our business. I turned right to exit; she proceeded into the abyss of commute anguish. A bond was made with another human being from the insulated world of our auto cocoons.

As we maneuver through our lives, the hours we squander when we are on autopilot add up. Days are lost, weeks and years fly by as we go through the motions of our day-to-day routines. The only way to slow down this cycle of repetitive living is to deny the miseries from setting in.

Your life unravels slowly when the concept of time is not something you are conscious of. The cliché of “living in the moment” is right up there with "have a nice day" as meaningless words when one has no intent in pursuing. What does it mean to live in the moment? Thousands of books and teachings exist about how to achieve this state.

I didn't want to read a thousand books, so I read only one. I took away a single sentence I could use right away. It said, "Focus less on what's going on in your mind and more on what's going on in the room, less on your mental chatter and more on yourself as part of something."

The next time you find yourself sitting in a wall of traffic, take a deep breath, turn off the air conditioner, roll down the window, put on some Beethoven, and be part of a long snake of cars and slowly slither. Fighting the timekeeper will only make the driving experience worse. Your state of mind will transform, and you can..."have a nice day."