This afternoon, the car ahead of me pulled up to a red light and stopped -- sat there for a while -- and then proceeded to go through the intersection. The light hadn't changed -- it was still red.
My first reaction was to wonder what in the world this person was doing and hope that there was no oncoming traffic. The second thought was -- what was this person thinking?
Obviously, they weren't thinking about the red light -- it hadn't changed -- it was still red.
We can assume they weren't thinking about oncoming traffic -- they didn't slam on their brakes or speed up as the car with the right of way honked at them.
They must of have been thinking about something else -- which is to say, they weren't living their life right then -- they were off in la-la land inside their head while what was happening in the world their body was inhabiting was going on around (but not with) them.
Fortunately, no accident resulted. But how often to we all "live" our life in this way -- engaged in part of our past or part of our future but not engaged here and now.
How often does our pattern of eating resemble this snapshot at the stoplight:
You pull up to the table -- sit there a while and eat -- get up and leave but never really engage in what was going on with the food you ate? Again, fortunately, most of the time no huge catastrophe results from this eating behavior. But if you run a red light often enough or eat food mindlessly often enough, the likelihood there will be consequences for this behavior increases -- it's only a matter of time before you don't like the result. And the solution to each of these situations is easy enough -- be mindful of where you are and what you are doing...when you are doing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment