“The present moment is the only moment available to us, it is the door to all moments.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s officially spring. The birds wake each day chirping loudly. The sky dips between glorious sunshine and sprinkles of rain, the temperature shifts on a whim. The ebb and flow of winter’s chill transitions to summer sunshine - we’re full on in the mix of it all: the present, the here and now. This elusive space, the one so many of us would like to be able to stay in, often evades us. 

Living in this tech mania moment in history, our eyes dash from one shiny thing to the next, always running, doing, moving, FOMOing. Rarely do we get the space, or take the time, to create the space to simply be. 

In the world of education, our high school seniors are presently checking mailboxes and inboxes daily. Some are waiting on those college letters, others considering military access, and still others planning, dreaming, and making moves in a million different directions for life after that 12th educational year closes. 

Whether young or young at heart, our lives are full of zipping from sunup to sundown, rarely slowing enough for us to use the bathroom, no less find space to sit with our thoughts, or remain in a brain space free from ruminating about the past or in a state of anxiety about the future. 

What if we tried another way?

Last week, I tried something new. Decades ago, I had a student who strolled into my ninth-grade class carrying his beloved skateboard. Every day, without fail, that kid (tired, friendly, participatory, and kind) kept his trusted friend under his desk. All these years later, we still chat, and when I told him of my desire to learn how to skateboard, he didn’t bat an eye before cheering me on. So last week, I donned a helmet, pads, and a smile and took a lesson from a San Diego local, Kate, and gave it a shot. A quarter of a century later, I finally understood a tiny bit of what my student did all those years ago. 

Like many other sporting or artistic pursuits, the lessons that come from doing the thing go far beyond the thing itself. For one full hour, Kate shared the fundamentals with me. How to stand, where my feet need to be, the mechanics of stopping, body positioning. She showed me the ropes and held my hand when I asked. Then, she let me try all by myself. And, like surfing, paddle boarding, yoga, and many others, there, on that board, for those moments, nothing else mattered. In those moments (it might really have been seconds) as the board rolled along, there was no anxiety, no future planning, no past rumination…only presence. 

Right there, in the magic of the moment, a smile from ear to ear, hands waving in the wind, this is of what they speak. If only we could bottle it. 

Forever, surfers have talked about mindfulness, presence, and reading, or listening to the waves. Positive psychologists speak about flow, that being-in-the-zone experience where enjoyment, challenge, and focus nearly freeze time. Buddhist monks encourage us to do the dishes when doing the dishes, and authors and speakers aim to strengthen our resolve, to recapture our attention, and harness our concentration. 

While many of us work to develop those focus muscles with meditation, yoga, mindfulness, or one of a variety of tools, life, in its frenetic and energetic nature, often steers our attention elsewhere. 

How do we change the channel?

Consider the majority of the humans in your local area. Perhaps you know a few who are fully entrenched in the world of mindfulness, meditation, reiki, yoga, and listen to every single podcast to work on their staying in the present strategies. Perhaps you know many who are hard-pressed to find a moment to themselves, take pride in being busy, feel pulled in a zillion directions, and more often than not eat in their car while driving someone from place A to place B. 

And, possibly, the students in your life are much the same: up at dawn, involved in more clubs or sports or classes than they can count, do their homework in the car or on the bus on the way home from practice or on the way to that lesson, and between school work, homework, work work, and life work, they’re quite utterly exhausted. 

Now, ask them to practice presence and you might just get the biggest eye roll they can muster.

What if we flipped the script? 

What if we manifested that magic of presence of mind and moments from the beginning? 

What if we built it into the curriculum of school and life from early childhood and reaffirmed it through adulthood? What if we pivoted away from the fill every single moment of the day with a hardlined productivity mindset and aim for business mentality, and took time to sit with it, do nothing, let it be, and stay right here kind of attitude? 

What if we pushed through the discomfort, allowed the feeling of wanting to quite literally wriggle out of our own skin and push away the ick, and made it past that funkiness to the other side…the one where the change can begin to happen? 

What if we empowered our young people to work hard and take time, to be their best selves while taking care of themselves, and to aim for success with the knowledge that that definition is different for every single one of us? 

Imagine what that picture could look like, what a world it could be if we all managed to remain in and celebrate the present moment a little more often. 

That exuberance of spring, the hopefulness, the reawakening, the softening of earth’s collective shoulders, the deep exhale of stale air amidst the full inhale of possibility…the present moment has it all, if only we are curious and courageous enough to stay in it. 

Drop in. It’s a little nerve-wracking at first, but once there, the ride is filled with magic. 

Tips and tricks to maintain that present moment

Life lessons from a skateboarding experience

“We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.” - Jack Kornfield

The little kid in me overflowed with joy. She never tried skateboarding; it wasn’t her thing. She was an active gymnast, a mindful crafter, and a joyful volunteer, and it never interested her…until it did. When that student showed up in my classroom, I didn’t get it, until I did. But the journey in between involved a newfound love of yoga, mindfulness, positive psychology, paddle boarding, and realizing that slowing down and staying present isn’t something less, it’s more…and perhaps, even a superpower. 

Every day, from every angle, the world shouts at us to be busy, to do more, to take on extra, to be productive, to work more and play less, that there’s no prize for staying present or choosing a slower, more intentional pace of life. Yet, society’s prize might not be the one you’re seeking. For some, flow and presence are found in work, yet for most, stillness is necessary to reach that pinnacle of presence. 

That mindful magic comes from allowing things to be as they are, accepting the messy emotions with the positive ones, allowing each to be as it is and flow through without poking us into reaction, sending us careening from one feeling to the next. 

Sure, looking at the skateboard made this young at heart human nervous, but the feeling of flying on it didn’t. And when it slowed to a halt and stuck in a sidewalk crack, there was a life lesson. Put your foot down, stop the slide, don’t panic, reset, try again, and ride on. Not every bit of stuck yields a crisis reaction, rather a reassessment, a response, a pause, a trust in your abilities, and getting back on the board. According to one of the founders of the artform, Rodney Mullen, “skateboarding is a meditation.” I didn’t think so then, but I sure do now.

Magic from a passion journey

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.” - Eckhart Tolle

Have you ever watched anyone talk about their passion or an enthusiastic interest? 

Their eyes light up, their shoulders ease, their voice sings, and no matter whether you think what they’re talking about is purposeful or ridiculous, it’s absolutely fabulous to experience. 

It pulls them out of whatever they’re doing and right into the center of the now; they exude joy, concentration, almost a spiritual high. Be it a sport, an art, a hobby, a learning, or even inanimate object, it doesn’t matter. They love it and it shows. It slows the temperament, adds a shine to their face, and a spring in their step. It brings them into the present and they glow. 

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, agrees. There’s power in that joyful focus, one that adds happiness to a life and brings with it an intentional anchor to one’s existence. 

Dr. Laurie Santos, professor of one of Yale’s most attended classes, The Science of Happiness, talks about gratitude practice, keeping a delight journal, and how those small steps can lead to big changes and help center moments in time and draw our attention back, a journeying process that allows us moments of peace, joy, and a bit of reflection. 

So, whether your passion or joy comes from gardening, coffee making, a cup of viridescent matcha, lego creation, making music, or even skateboarding, harness it, stay in it, use it for that mindful meditation. 

Watch how it transcends patience and presence into different facets of your life. 

The voice inside the app 

“If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do love prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present…Gratefully.” - Maya Angelou

My favourite teenager is vigorously posting images of her friends getting into the schools of their choice and waiting with baited breath to hear from hers. She’s a good human, a kind friend, a talented artist, and a fierce athlete…and, like many others in the thick of their senior year, is full of vitality, nerves, stress, hope, curiosity, energy, and a whole host of what-ifs. She might not talk about it all, but it’s there, weighing on those shoulders daily. It can’t be easy, and the obstacles in her world are vastly different than those of many others. Checking emails every second runs contrary to a staying in the present kind of mindset. 

How can we change the narrative? 

A positive psychology professor and mentor of mine, Dr. Suzy Green, founder of The Positivity Institute in Sydney, Australia, sent me the Insight Timer app. It is one of the many, like Calm and Headspace, to aim to pull us out of the day’s frenzy and center us for a minute. 

These new school tech tools are filled with old school wisdom. While each (like each of us) has their own strength, they are a mechanism to help re-engage our inner compass towards stillness. Perhaps it’s to help you sleep, maybe it’s to practice yoga asanas, or possibly it’s to work on your meditation mantras and challenge the way we react…or, potentially, don’t react to the pokes and prickles of the world around us. 

And, maybe, just maybe, one of those soothing segments can ground us or steady our emotions and patience long enough to allow us, and our favourite teenagers, to breathe. 

Challenge the noise 

“The present is the point at which time touches eternity.” - C.S. Lewis

Travel is an antidote to many things. It forces us to be in the present, challenges our comfort zones, reminds us of the tiny space we inhabit on this blue planet, and often directs our attention to the moment at hand. 

Motorbikes wiz through the streets of Hanoi, tuk tuks zig zag across Bangkok, cycle rickshaws bump on Delhi’s busy roads, and yellow cabs zip and slam amidst Manhattan’s mega traffic. Chaos-infused awe, at times…that’s travel. But travel is also a silent sunrise atop Israel’s Masada, the whoosh of the wind as a new day crests Hawaii’s Haleakala, the colorful skies of a Fijian sunset, or a private yoga class in the midst of a Maldivian atoll. 

Travel stuns and ignites the senses, rams the world’s noise with a state of curious engagement, and challenges our inner wanderer and our innate wonderer. 

Travel focuses our mind on what’s right in front of us, takes us out of our rumination spin, and centers that anticipation anxiety right smack in the present moment. Travel can shake us and steady us, exactly as meditation and presence can. First, there’s discomfort, surprise, even dislike, but wait a beat (maybe two, perhaps a whole host of them), and you’ll get there. Each time we come back to it, we get stronger. Each time we challenge the noise, the impulses to ditch and return to that frenetic pace, we grow. Each time we sit back down, stay present, and stick with it, we stretch our patience muscles. 

It may take moments or years to get there and even longer to notice the changes, but when we do, the whole world opens. The growth is in the action (or perhaps, the inaction), those moments where we do our best to stay right there and pay attention. 

We’ll get there, but for now, let’s stay right here. 

Please click the photo below for a collection of my Through the Eyes of an Educator columns:

Stacey Ebert, our Educational Travels Editor, is a traveler at heart who met her Australian-born husband while on a trip in New Zealand. Stacey was an extracurricular advisor and taught history in a Long Island public high school for over fifteen years, enjoying both the formal and informal educational practices. After a one year 'round the world honeymoon, travel and its many gifts changed her perspective. She has since left the educational world to focus on writing and travel. She is energetic and enthusiastic about long term travel, finding what makes you happy and making the leap. In her spare time she is an event planner, yogi, dark chocolate lover, and spends as much time as possible with her toes in the sand.

Check out her website at thegiftoftravel.wordpress.com for more of her travel musings.