At my house, we are fortunate to live with two dogs, Sadie and Lola. They are Springer Spaniels, and they are wonderful companions, both for us and for each other. Lola is very smart, and she definitely has her finger (paw?) on the pulse of the house. She knows when it's time to go out, time for lunch, time to get her ears cleaned, time for a bath. She anticipates all of these things, and meets each anticipated event with a certain consternation. Like, a hide-under-the-coffee-table consternation.
And then there is Sadie. I would never call Sadie "dumb," but it is safe to say that she is notably less intelligent than her sister, Lola. And, as a result, she anticipates events much less reliably than Lola.
In a practical sense, this means that Sadie lives completely "in the moment." In Sadie's mind, there is no past. There is no future. There is no reason to anticipate a pleasant or unpleasant experience, because if it's not happening right now... then it doesn't exist. So Sadie just spends her time being Sadie. She is unfailingly genuine, and unflaggingly loyal. And whatever she is doing at any particular moment: that's it. That's all there is. She lives 100% in the now.
For a busy, hyper-scheduled orthopedic surgeon like me, it does not take much time watching these two dogs to understand one thing: Sadie definitely has it better.
Imagine what it would be like to never worry... to never concern yourself with the past, to never have anxiety about the future. What a different existence that would be. And when one begins to consider this, one begins to realize how much actual time is spent considering the past and the future, how much energy every day is devoted to worry, or concern, or anxiety, or uncertainty about what has happened, or what may happen. When you really think about it, it's a strikingly large amount of our time. Every day.
Is it possible to live without that? To live more in the present moment? To be more Sadie, and less Lola? It is. The concept is known as Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the idea that, at any given moment, during any given undertaking, your attention is singularly focused on that experience. Some people refer to it as "flow." Athletes call it being "in the zone." Mindfulness allows you to shut out the chatter, the distractions, the white noise of everyday concerns, and attend solely to the moment or task at hand. Taken to its extreme, it is almost a form of meditation, where outside distractions can be forgotten, and true mindful focus occurs.
For me, Mindfulness occurs regularly in the operating room. When faced with a surgical challenge, it's a wonderful luxury to be able to shut out the outside world, to turn off the machine for a while, and to focus solely on the task at hand. Work concerns, my busy schedule, teenager issues (Did I mention that I have two teenage kids? Wow.)... these things simply go away.
In the OR, there is only here, and now, and a problem to solve in as perfect a way as possible. Everything else gets shut off, until the skin is closed and the drapes are taken down. All that matters is being mindful of the patient.
What a wonderful luxury that is. More Sadie!
Pictured above are Lola, left and Sadie, right.