Present

Every self-help/Improvement video or book I have ever watched and read eventually arrives at the same destination. "Be present." It is delivered with absolute certainty, as though the words themselves contain the answer. The speaker or the writer pauses dramatically.  Then they move on. Nobody ever explains how. The instruction reminds me of something completely unrelated; my school days. Every morning after assembly our class teacher would call out our names during attendance. My entire school life my roll number was always 8 save for the final year in school when it changed to 7. But that is a story for another day. Back to the attendance

“Bhangle?”

"Present."

“Charwad?”

"Present."

“Daga?”

"Present."

We all answered, never realising how ironic that word actually was. We were physically occupying a wooden chair inside a classroom, but our minds were almost never there. Some of us were thinking about cricket. Others were wondering what tiffin our friends had brought. A few were still half asleep. The adventurous ones were planning how to avoid homework or plotting the afternoon's mischief (Mr Guzder has some interesting comments on this from 88-89). We all answered "Present." In reality we were simply there.

It has taken me a long time to appreciate the difference and an even longer time to write about it. The Stoics understood this well. Among them, Marcus Aurelius repeatedly reminds himself that the only time we truly possess is this very moment. Yesterday cannot be altered. Tomorrow refuses to arrive until it becomes today. The present is all that is available to us. Simple enough. Yet reading the Meditations, or the countless commentaries written about them, often leaves me feeling that something important has been left unsaid. They tell us to stay in the present. They rarely explain what prevents us from doing so.The obstacle is not the future. It is not the past. It is us. More specifically, it is our biases.

Every conversation we have is filtered through thousands of experiences we have accumulated over the years. Before someone has even finished their first sentence, our brain has already classified them.

"I know where this is going." "I've heard this before." "This person always complains." "They're wrong." "They're exaggerating." "They don't understand." Or the endless  combinations of the language that you can think of.  Our mind has already written the ending while the other person is still speaking the first chapter. How can we possibly be present if we are busy editing reality before it has even unfolded?

I have been trying to change one small habit in my own life. Whenever possible, I avoid posting birthday wishes on social media. Not because I dislike social media. Not because I think it is wrong. But because pressing a button that says Happy Birthday requires almost nothing from me. Sometimes the platform even reminds me to do it. A hundred other people are doing exactly the same thing. It rarely feels personal. Instead, I prefer picking up the phone. The conversation may last only two or three minutes, sometimes less. But for those few minutes I am not scrolling. I am not multitasking. I am not thinking about replying to another message.

I am there. More importantly, I am trying to be present. There is a remarkable difference between sending someone a notification and giving them your undivided attention. One is a transaction, The other is a gift. Time is finite - Attention is even rarer.

People often say that being present means listening. I don't think that is entirely true, listening is surprisingly easy. Presence is considerably harder. Most of us know how to remain silent while someone else is speaking, very few of us know how to suspend judgment while they are speaking. These are completely different skills. We interrupt mentally long before we interrupt verbally. We begin preparing our answer before the other person has finished explaining their problem. Sometimes we aren't even listening at all, we all are simply waiting for our turn to speak. It is like two radio stations broadcasting simultaneously. Its no wonder conversations feel exhausting. Our bodies betray us long before our words do. Someone may maintain perfect eye contact, nod at the appropriate moments and occasionally say, "Hmm..." or "I understand." Yet the body tells another story; it’s the slight glance toward a phone, the restless tapping of fingers, the shifting weight from one foot to another. Looking past you instead of at you. - I could go on and on.  These tiny signals are impossible to fake for very long. We are remarkably good at detecting them, even if we cannot consciously explain why. We know when someone has stopped listening. Children know it, Spouses for sure know it. Friends certainly know it. Clients know it. Employees know it. Even pets seem to know it. Presence is communicated less through words than through attention. The body almost always reveals where the mind truly is.

Biases make this harder. Suppose someone disagrees with our political opinion, instantly we stop hearing their words. Suppose someone belongs to another generation, we dismiss their ideas before examining them.

Suppose someone has more experience, we stop asking questions because we feel intimidated. In every case, we have abandoned the present. Instead of observing what is happening, we are interacting with our assumptions. The conversation becomes one between our prejudices and our imagination, the other person merely occupies space. I sometimes wonder whether being present requires a temporary suspension of the ego. Not eliminating it - Just asking it to wait outside for a while. To genuinely hear another person, we must momentarily stop comparing ourselves with them, stop planning our response, stop deciding whether we agree, stop measuring whether their story is bigger than ours.

Simply observe. How deceptively simple that sounds, Yet it is probably one of the hardest things one can ever attempt.

Presence extends far beyond conversations. It changes everything.  I have caught myself reading three pages of a book while thinking about something completely unrelated. At the end of those three pages I cannot remember a single sentence. Technically I was reading, in reality I wasn't. The same happens during meetings; People attend, very few participate. We sit through presentations while secretly answering emails or thinking about the next meeting and then we wonder why nothing meaningful gets decided. Attendance was never the same thing as presence. Perhaps that is why genuinely present people leave such a lasting impression. Years later, you rarely remember exactly what they said, we remember how they made us feel. We remember that when they spoke to us, the rest of the world seemed to disappear. We were heard. We were understood. For those few minutes, we mattered. That is an extraordinary gift in an age where everyone's attention is permanently divided.

Maybe that little classroom attendance register taught us the wrong lesson. Perhaps the class teacher should have asked a different question. Not "Are you present?" Rather the question sold have been, "Are you really here?"Those are two entirely different questions. One requires a response that just needs our voice. The other requires our whole self.

I am still learning the difference. Some days I succeed, many days I fail; But each time I catch myself thinking about yesterday or rehearsing tomorrow while someone sits in front of me, I remember that classroom.

I remember proudly answering, "Present." Now I know better.

Being present is one of the most difficult and perhaps one of the most worthwhile things we can ever learn.

C