Imagine the following:
Your life’s a mess, anxiety keeps you from sleeping at night. You desperately need to relax. So you’ve rented a boat for a quiet day out on the lake.
As you leave, you notice that the boat is sitting somewhat low in the water. No big deal – the lake is calm – sure, rowing isn’t super easy, but you can cope – some exercise does you good.
As you reach the middle of the lake, the wind picks up. Water starts spilling into the boat, with every wave. With every wave, the boat sits lower in the water. It’s now time to do something. As you can’t change the weather, you start searching the boat for things you can dump - to make the boat lighter and stop the water from spilling into it. You notice a tarp towards the front of the boat. Underneath are two large linen bags – each filled with three heavy bricks. “Who on earth would place bags with bricks in a boat? Are they trying to kill me?” – then you notice the labels on the bags: one says “regrets about the past” – the other one says “worries about the future”. What the heck?
As there’s nothing else you can dump, other than just giving up and swimming to shore, you start dumping the bricks, one by one. First you empty out the bag labelled “regrets about the past”. With each brick you throw over board, the boat gets a little lighter. Once you’re done, the boat hasn’t only stopped filling with water, it has also become considerably easier to row. The waves still rock the boat – yet inside, everything is calm.
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Consider this:
The past is over. There’s no way to change it, no matter how much we wish we could. We can (and should) deal with the aftermath now – sure, but what’s done is done.
It’s similar with the future: no matter how much our worries about the future torment us, the future hasn’t happened. It’s not real. Our elaborate projections of the future rarely become reality exactly the way we thought.
All we have is this very moment. It’s our boat. It’s our sphere of action. It’s where we live. It’s where we’re safe. It can be filled with things we can work on and change, should we believe that to be the right way. Or, if we want it to be, it can be empty, relaxing and peaceful.
Our mental capabilities are limited – in order to give the current moment our fullest attention, we can’t have unfounded worrying and needless regrets take up valuable resources.
Our life is now. Not in the past, not in the future.
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If you’d like to turn the boat image into a quick meditation or as an intro for one, try this variation:
Take a moment to think about three things from the past that have been bothering you. Attach them each to a brick and throw them over board.
Now identify three things that worry you about the future. Attach them to a brick each and dump them as well. Watch them sink.
Then turn your attention to the moment – how does it feel now that you’ve sunk your bricks?
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