Being Present and Living with Intention

How slowing down and looking around makes me feel alive

I’m beginning to feel a change in me.

I’ve been slowing down and looking around a lot lately, taking my time with things and noticing my surroundings more. I take a deep breath of the crisp, clean air when I step outside every morning and smile to myself. I close my eyes to savour each sip of coffee and chew my food with care to really taste it. I wonder at the people and animals and objects around me instead of automatically reaching for my phone, stretching each second out as far as I can.

Growth is often painful, but this feels something like relief.

I try to be present as often as possible, recognising my role in each situation and constantly evaluating how I interact with the world. This active reflection helps me to better understand myself, harness my creativity and improve as a person. It’s the same reason that I journal every day, writing to process my thoughts and emotions and be more self-aware. Using a tactile method to document everything is more intentional than coloured pixels on a screen.

But it can also feel like I’m living my life twice-removed at times, as if I’m watching it play out before me in third person. This is where nature comes in, grounding me in reality with small, fleeting gifts like a gorgeous sunrise or a ladybird landing on my hand while I’m reading outside. One of my favourite moments lately is watching the golden light wash over the trees beyond my backyard accompanied by birdsong before I head to work in the morning.

This is what I had the pleasure of waking up to the other day.

It’s a rewarding experience for the most part and I generally come out the other side of it slightly different. As my main man Illy said, quoting Barack Obama: This ain’t no revolution/ I just move it two degrees, then two degrees, then two degrees. I’ll forever be a work in progress, always learning until the day that I die. But since I still have no idea what I’m meant to be doing with my life, I’m choosing to relish the in-between.

Perhaps this habit was subconsciously inspired by the podcasts that I’ve been listening to. One of them is How to Be a Better Human, a TED project hosted by American comedian Chris Duffy who interviews interesting people about their expert subjects. They explore some powerful concepts and provide useful tips for implementing them in your own life. I’ve been learning a lot about active listening from this podcast in particular too, so it’s a twofer.

The other is Melbourne poet and fellow Substacker Darby Hudson’s brilliant podcast Blah Di Da, where he thinks aloud his whacky and wonderful ideas by literally just talking into his phone. It’s like a stream of consciousness from a stoned philosopher who expresses their views through art rather than journal publications. His exuberantly sardonic personality is infectious and each 10-minute episode helps you to see the strange beauty in being alive.

It reminds me of the Rick Rubin quote: “Do what you can with what you have. Nothing more is needed.” Though this was most likely intended as creative inspiration, I feel the same way about life in general. We often fantasise about some distant time and place where our destiny awaits us, disregarding the significance of the small, individual steps to get there. I still suffer from this myself, so I try to always appreciate the journey and trust in the process.

I spoke to my gran on the phone yesterday and when I asked her what she’s been up to, she simply replied, “just existing”. I told her I thought that was a beautiful thing and she laughed. Sometimes that’s all we can do, but I’ve found that freeing yourself up for life to happen makes you more perceptible to its hidden gems. As a creative, pencilling in time to specifically do nothing is essential to restoring energy and inviting ideas. Welcome the boredom, don’t fight it.

I’ve recently started a weekly ritual to find joy in the mundane. Every Wednesday for the past three weeks, I’ve taken myself out for brunch at a lovely local café before doing my grocery shopping. It’s a nice treat to offset the banality of what follows, but it also forces me to slow down and think about stuff. I sit there in my corner – I’ve had the same table each time, so I’m claiming it as my own – steadily working my way through the menu and my ruminations before leaving a little lighter.

Today’s choice was an egg and bacon calzone with a latte on the side.

Even when I have a conversation with somebody, I’ve noticed that I ponder it for a short while afterwards to extract what I can from it for future reference. Similar to the way that your brain files the important events of the day while you sleep and shreds the irrelevant stuff to make room for the next day’s data. As the other person is speaking, I wonder how I can be the most receptive to what they’re saying and try to echo their words in my mind to make sure it sticks.

That probably either sounds wanky as hell or makes no sense at all, but it’s the best way that I can describe it. I’ve always been mystified when hearing others say that they have an inner monologue. Like, is it a running commentary in their own voice that never ceases? Or are they debating every decision with themselves to determine which is the best to make in real time? In a way, I’ve developed my own with practice to recognise all aspects of an experience.

It’s funny, I have a reputation at my work for being the manic one. Always running around and getting shit done on little sleep and too much coffee, spending barely half an hour with my arse in a chair from the start to the end of my shift. Now, I take my time. I still do the work, but I’m careful, clean, calm. I’ve found that my performance has improved as a result, as has my morale. By slowing down, I not only become better, I also enjoy it more.

And that’s what makes me feel alive.