【第十屆】110學年度靜思語與我的生命故事徵文比賽_佳作_醫技系一年級_Jonathan Wijaya_The Art Of Being Present

     One could always look down on words. True, words are mouthless, but only if you are willing to try to understand, will you then realise how loud they could speak to your heart. Steven Furtick once said that “Your perspective will either become your prison or your passport;” I never realised mine was a prison until this one moment. It was an early Tuesday morning. Having only slept for a few hours, going to class was the last thing I wanted. The long walk from the dormitory got me feeling guilty for being unproductive the day before. This was followed by a ray of anxious thought as the mid-term exam is coming closer. My mind was a mess, it got me tired and unmotivated. Before class, I decided to go to the toilet. Medical simulation centre, 1^st floor. There it was, glued on the toilet wall, one of Master’s aphorisms. It says “Practice mindfulness in your daily life. A mind free of wandering thoughts develops inner strength.” This aphorism slapped me conscious.

     It seems like these words spoke to me softly. It turns out that I’m weary because my mind was hovering somewhere. I was waist-deep in unnecessary thought. Because of this, I put my energy into something I shouldn’t have, which ultimately become wasted, making me less energetic and unproductive. This means if I could find a way to eliminate these thoughts, I would have more energy to do something positive. And according to the aphorism, practicing mindfulness could help.

     However, the term “mindfulness” was still vague to me at that moment. And upon searching for the description, I found out that it means being in the present and focusing on what we have to do now. One interesting thing however, is the trend for this word is rising, meaning the word has been frequently mentioned in the past few years.

     This means that I’m not the only one trying to be mindful. Then I realise that we are currently living in a competitive society where everyone is expected to be perfect. Young or old, defects seem unacceptable. We even reached a point where we have to convince ourselves to move all the mountains along the way in order to accept who we are. We strive to be the best version of ourselves without realising that sometimes, even our lowest bar is too high for us to reach. This resulted in us constantly thinking about our appearance, achievement, grades; Which in the end, got us worrying about the future or regretting what’s behind. We are not being present, and that drains us from within.

     The graph shows that many people need to practice mindfulness. Because after all, we are our own source of weary. All those wandering thoughts are consuming our energy. “A mind free of wandering thoughts develops inner strength.” Develop means becoming mature. This means that we already have that strength within ourselves; We just haven’t put that strength in the right place because our mind is not mature enough to be in the present. This aphorism is meaningful to me because it teaches me that being in peace means living in the present, being mindful, and enjoying the process.

     This goes along with Lao Zi’s eternal words:

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
But if you are in peace, you are living in the present!”