Are You Really Living, or Are You Using “Being Present” to Get to Where the Grass is Greener?

Even in the personal development journey of learning to be more grounded and present in the current moment, it’s still easy to get caught up in “being present” as a means to an end – to get “over there” to your desired destination – and lose sight of truly enjoying the journey and your life right now.

At least it has been for me.

It’s something that’s hit me and sunk in as this year has progressed. Maybe it’s partly a 2020 thing.

But I started to realize that even with all the work I’ve done on myself, the massive amounts of growth I’ve had, and the great successes and experiences I’ve had, there was still a lot of doing it all – and living – to get somewhere else: more money, a higher-end lifestyle, more, better relationships and sex…and really more happiness and fulfillment.

Feeling as solid, powerfully confident, and emotionally free as Brian and Dave, for example. And just loving life and enjoying my experiences more fully – And there’s the irony: waiting to get somewhere else to fully enjoy the now.

It can be tricky because you are doing the work to improve your life…but improving your life happens the fastest, easiest…and most importantly, in the most fulfilling way when you get into a better relationship with, as they say, being where your feet are.

Falling in love with life and yourself right where you are.

Because when you’re living more in those higher emotions (Courage, Acceptance, Love, and Peace) – from a real, deep-down place, not a place of forcing positive thinking – life is just easier.

Not fully enjoying the now is one of the very things that holds people back from feeling solid, being their most powerful selves, and really loving life.

Life can straight up pass you by that way.

Now, I did have a lot of exceptions where I have been more fully enjoying the now as an end to itself: coaching guys and seeing them shift in front of my eyes, my sports broadcasting side career, some of my travels, some experiences just hanging out with good people, and amazing experiences with women, just to name a few things that come to mind.

But they’re still the exceptions to how I’d been going through life. And even within many of the exceptions, I realized there’s still been varying degrees of those moments not feeling quite good enough, or being on the path to somewhere “better.”

I was falling into a better, more enjoyable version of the trap my high school acting teacher told us about freshman year: “When I _____, then I’ll really live.”

And on top of continually missing out on more fully enjoying life, a lack of feeling good now can lead to more pain as you get to the destinations and achieve the goals you’d hoped for. Because you never learned to actually, truly enjoy the now.

And on top of continually missing out on more fully enjoying life, a lack of feeling good now can lead to more pain as you get to the destinations and achieve the goals you’d hoped for. Because you never learned to actually, truly enjoy the now

How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor’s piece in the video below really hits home.

So as that started to sink in this year, I’ve been doing my best to stop and smell the roses more.

Remind myself that this is life, right now! And look around, take it all in, feel it all, and enjoy it more.

Without faking it – just tapping into what I can genuinely enjoy more about the moments.

Even as I’m writing this on my flight back to LA after two weeks of FEARLESS events and Cuban food comas in Miami, I’m checking in and asking myself if I can enjoy this, right now, a little more. And make it a little less of a vessel to get somewhere else.

The (sometimes very subtle) key is for it to be real. Not something you’re convincing yourself of.

And that also means letting yourself feel, accept, and process heavier emotions.

Yesterday, my last evening in Miami, I picked up a Cuban Cofee and walked out to the beautiful pool lounge area by the beach at our hotel to relax a little and take it all in.

And as I sat underneath the palm trees, I started to feel it.

(Louis CK’s alleged sexual misconduct notwithstanding, this is still an important bit.)

The subtle longing to be “over there” – to be “further along” and more solid as a man.

Just this subtle longing and sadness.

My kneejerk reaction was sort of “Screw that. I’ve done great work the last two weeks, I’ve grown as a coach and a speaker, and I want to fully enjoy my last night in Miami as much as I can.”

But the truth was that just wasn’t where I was right then. And I realized I’d been suppressing this kind of grief – especially when it comes to my travels and expectations for them falling a little (sometimes a lot) short of reality. And also pressuring myself to have more fun, as a client recently put it to me about some things he was wrestling with.

So as I sat there with the feelings, becoming much more aware of these subtle emotions than ever before, I realized I needed to stop running from them if I wanted to be that next level of happy, solid as a man…and also more fulfilled by my travels, specifically.

I needed to stop trying to get “over there” and feel and process.

And even as much as we preach men having our emotions being a healthy, courageous, even masculine thing, there’s still that part of me that judges my own grief (especially when it’s not in a workshop where I’m surrounded by supportive men and, often, women)  as not being manly. I needed to stop being afraid of and ashamed of that, too, because the judgment just stuffs it down and holds it in place.

So I got up, walked back up to my hotel room, put on a little melancholy music, and let myself have one of the best cries I’ve had in a long time.

Some of the grief had clear sources like I wrote about above. And that’s even more clear in hindsight, writing this now.

But some of it just came up without a clear source or thoughts. Just pure emotion.

You don’t always have to know the where or why. Just feel what’s there.

I did my best to not analyze it. Just ride the wave and feel.

I didn’t become enlightened after, but I did feel more real. And, later, lighter. I’d taken some weights that I’d been trying to ignore off my shoulders.

And it was another little brick in the wall of being happier, bolder, more free, and more present.

So have goals and a direction, absolutely.

But slow down and take it all in more often – all your sensations around you and, especially, the feelings throughout your body. This is life, right now! How can you genuinely appreciate it a little more?

And realize that sometimes that means connecting with your heavier emotions.

So you can actually move through them and truly let them go so you’re emotionally available to enjoy life more.