In the moment – barbecue time!

Living in the moment is when we pay attention to reality. We stop dwelling on the past, we stop planning for the future, and we allow ourselves to experience the present, the now. By the way, those of you who know me personally will realise that my wife Daphne was equally involved in the barbecue I tell about.

Yesterday morning I cleaned the barbecue ready to entertain some friends. The weather here was glorious, so I took a bowlful of hot water and detergent into the garden, found a convenient shady spot, and sat down to wash the grill. I enjoyed being consciously aware of the warm breeze, the bright colours of the flowers, the sound of bees. I enjoyed seeing the grill start to shine as I scrubbed it.

It wasn’t perfectly clean – there were some burned on deposits that weren’t going to come off whatever I did.

Some other things that weren’t perfect for the barbecue last night; the patio had been brushed but not pressure washed; the water in the pond was rather murky; the flowers in pots had not been dead-headed; and, worst of all, I’m not particularly skilled at cooking on a barbecue (I started by dropping an uncooked beef-burger onto the ground! And I forgot about the sweetcorn, which is still in the fridge along with a few burgers and sausages that were too charred to serve…).

I would have loved everything to be perfect, but the fact that it wasn’t didn’t spoil my pleasure in the evening at all, nor did it affect my guests’ enjoyment.

Perfection was not necessary!

It’s the same in life, too.

Now, I would be the first to agree that there are some circumstances where we need to do a task to the very best of our ability, and where a mistake can be extremely serious. Driving a car is an obvious example.

But for most of us, most of the time, is perfection necessary? If ‘good enough’ is all you have time or energy to achieve, isn’t that sufficient?

Personally, I find that I am more relaxed and happier by living ‘in the moment’. I enjoy what I am actually doing rather than wishing I’d done better. I enjoy today!