I seem to have been in a place lately that has been filled with thoughts and feelings about doing.  Apart from just being, or thinking, or feeling – doing.  Doing tasks, doing work, doing things, doing stuff.

This thinking, I am seeing, has always been focused on an outcome.  An outcome of “getting it done”.  I have been defining a goal of doing something, a goal of getting it done, checking it off a list.  That has been my focus as I was doing something. 

I value the quiet time in my life.  Time when I sit in stillness and meditate.  Time when I read and reflect, and just breathe.  That time is extremely important to me.  It is a time when I am fully present in the moment, when I am focused on opening my self up to all that is within that moment.  And I am starting to see that I have been thinking about it as something completely separate from when I am doing things.

I now realize that it is not.  Whether I am being still or being active, I can be fully present in the current moment.  I can focus on what is in that moment.  If I am doing something, I can focus on the one thing that is in front of me, the one thing I am doing, being fully present as I am doing it.  And then when the next moment comes, I can do the same.  Meditation and being fully present in the moment are not separate from everything else.  They are the core of everything.

As has been happening with me recently, this issue came up for me in a dream last night.  I dreamed about doing things, working on different tasks, but a major difference in my dream was that I was in a different place of understanding as I was doing them.  I was in a place where I realized that being present in the moment as i was doing just the one thing in front of me was the right way for me to approach doing things.  Not just to get them done.  But to be present as I was doing them.

I have a lot of work tasks facing me in my home right now.  That is probably what spurred on this line of thinking and realization.  I’m now looking forward to approaching those tasks in a different way.  Can I do that work while being fully present, and focusing on just the one thing in front of me?  Doing it not just to get it done, but being present while doing it?  

I have a feeling that is going to take some time and some practice.  Practice.  I guess that is what my practice is, isn’t it?  Walking on the path of becoming more enlightened as I walk my steps.  One step at a time.

chop wood, carry water