Wandering Minds

This morning I read a little blurb about a Harvard study that said people who had wandering minds were less happy than those who didn't.  Instead of thinking about the past or the future, it seems that those who "live in the moment" feel happier. Now, some of this makes sense.  Constantly second-guessing one's actions, regretting the past, worrying about the future, dwelling on what happened instead of enjoying what is going on now, it is easy to see how that would get in the way of being happy.  But then I wonder what sort of an analogy this creates in my own life. (Yes, it is always about me.)   Here I am, wandering the roads, having few plans about what I will do two days from now, untethered, somewhat rootless (not to mentioned route-less) and if that isn't a product of a wandering mind, I am not sure what is.  What I am doing right now is wandering.  And not just physically, not just wandering the West Coast in my small car with my dog.  At the same time, my mind is always skipping from one thought to the next:  what should I do next week?  Do I think I can actually get a job in this economy?  When the reality of being slightly homeless hits me, how will I really respond?  What will I do when the money runs out?  Why are all the radio stations here playing only Christian rock and who actually listens to this stuff?

But wait! With all this wandering, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, I still feel happy!   In fact, I feel more grounded and "in the moment" than I have felt in a very long time. So you can see the conundrum here.  My mind is jumping around like a chihuahua on a hot skillet but somehow I have also figured out how to do this "live in the moment" thing.

I am not dismissing the Harvard study, of course. Paying attention to what is in front of us, to what is happening right now is very important.  To negate the present because of worry about the future or regret about the past is to really screw up one's sense of contentment and happiness.  But to only dwell on the present might mean ignoring the experiences that led one to this present moment and it might mean poor planning for the future.  I think our past and our future color our present moments and they should.  We are the sum of our experiences.  Yes, we can sweep some of those unpleasant experiences under the rug (and we should) but some of them create the fabric of who we are right now.  And without that fabric, without the flaws in that cloth, we would be, to continue the comparison, a plain white cotton sheet.  Without considering what colors are in our future, that plain white cotton sheet would stay that way: serviceable but boring. 

Perhaps it is just that I have had too much really good coffee this morning and that has led to this ramble.  But I really believe that sometimes we have to let our minds wander and get out there and get some fresh air and look over the edge of the cliff.  The moment is good, true, but without the bruises of the past and the shadows of the future, the moment is just that:  one dimension of a life.

Be happy.  Let your mind wander, then reel it back in.