Drinking Life Light

The younger me was a kid in need of meds.  One game done, next one please.  Or maybe a college kid with a case chase, a party to go to and one after that and then after that as well where the women are plentiful and the sights and sounds fill the room and the night and every night.  Stimulation overload.  That was my brain.  That still is my brain.
I am constantly running around like a little kid high on sugar, or at least my mind is.  Hyper and out of control, this brain is constantly on the move and in need of stimulation.  Since it is one of my goals to slow myself down and to experience the moments that are constantly flying by, I recognize my ADD state of mind as a problem.  I am missing so much because when I stop to smell the roses, I have already begun to think about the smell of chocolate cake or what I might do later that day or whether or not I would like to take a nap. 
This is not good.
When I am at work I am thinking about music and video games and girls and sleeping and writing and anything else my brain travels to.  Walking to my car at 3:30, I stare at the ground and watch the thoughts of what happened in the day, what will happen later, what happened when I was six and what might happen in two weeks.  But what about the trees?  What about the blue sky over head?  As a resident of North East Ohio, blue sky is a precious commodity and I am wasting it with thoughts of the past and possible future. 

Is it the way I was raised?  Could it be this culture, this current state of the world?  Could it be run off from college and the few years after?  Could it be that I need Ritalin? 
It is nearly impossible to focus on one thing while the world is sending messages and sounds and warnings from all angles.  Stillness of mind is like an up-current battle against a tide of stimulation that flows around us all the time.  This head-on-a-swivel is affecting everything I do.  Even my relationships suffer.

Beyond my ineptness at emotional stability and letting people into my heart, it is a constant challenge to focus on one person at a time for a long time.  This little brain of mine is moving on before my heart has had a chance to settle in and make friends.  It's like the kid whose father is always moving.  That moving has become the comfort.  Never planting roots means it doesn't hurt as much to pull them up and move again. 
I guess there are traces of this reality in all things.
 By not focusing on any one thing I can see all things and not miss those that have passed me by already.
So, where does this get me?  What do I get out of this but experiences that are watered down?  My lack of mindfulness has made my life "Life-Lite".  Great taste, but less fulfilling.  Am I missing out on the slow savoring of all the flavors that one moment can bring?

When I spent the week cleaning and straightening and doing yard work I found an odd sense of joy in the moments that I was doing those things and a sense of relief at their completion. I wasn't worried about what else was going on.  I was doing what I was doing.  When I started this new relationship, I worked hard at focusing on where I was and who I was with.  I laughed hard and didn't worry about things said, not said, could be said.  I was enjoying the moments I was in. 

My mind is slipping again. 
Old mental habits are finding their way to the surface and I am losing sight of what is in front of me.  Sometimes living in the moment and savoring the things that are happening is so easy.  Breaking the chains that are my old ways of thinking is not.  We are where we are when we are there.  All the rest is conjecture.  Even thinking about the past is recalling stale emotions, thoughts, and memories.  It is impossible to get the full taste from that moment.  Filling the future is impossible.  All we have is right now.  I find it too easy to forget that. 
It's difficult to know what to see in a moment, though.  So much is happening, what do I look at?  Or should I let it all wash over me? 
I think Siddhartha would tell me to watch the colors, but fill my room with none for they are all beautiful.  Or maybe to look at each one, but focus on none.  I am not really sure what this means, yet.  I struggle with these new philosophies; even though their ideas make sense,  I don't yet know how they make sense for me.  What I do know is that I am missing something and what I have been doing hasn't been working.  So I take my daily reading to heart today.  Practice mindfulness in all you do so that by itself the mind is settled, calm and focused*.  Because, while it was fun in college to pound a case of beer, at some point my tastes have started changing.  The cheap twelve pack of Bud Light has been replaced with six Yuengling.  There may not be as many and I don't drink them as quickly, but they are so much better.



*buddhanet.net