Being present for the Awes of April

How can you triple the joy in your life? 

Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past. – George Orwell 

When did you last feel overwhelmed by beauty on a large scale? When was the last time you were stopped in your tracks? When have you felt part of a larger picture? That was a question that I asked in my research for this week’s column. It is a question that I asked in a workshop, just before the long weekend. 

When I awoke on a bright and breezy Sunday morning, I was greeted by Easter messages from across the world; leaders from past workshops, ex-colleagues and classmates. Each one of them, from different faiths, inspired, and reminiscing, perhaps in awe of resurrection of Jesus Christ, after being subjected to untold cruelty and the ensuing legacy that has lasted two millennia. It was interesting because the responses that came back to me were somewhat similar. 

Some could recall the memory of seeing their daughter's 10th results online and the joy and excitement that followed. Some remembered the birth of their child as a moment that they were awestruck. Some of them would be transfixed in just that time to savour the moment, in solemnity and maybe silent prayer with their families. Some were awestruck by a beautiful sunset and some by a sunrise and some by the full moon. Some of the messages of Easter were, in a way, anticipating the invigorating possibilities that only a resurrection can bring to the fore. To some extent you could detect the anticipation of a personal resurrection. 

As you wake up to April, wish you a very Happy Easter Monday. It promises to be a rather busy week, with the long weekend behind us. Before you get on with your busy lives, answer three simple questions. Lets say you are planning a summer vacation in the month of May or there is a parents wedding anniversary coming up or there is a spouse birthday coming up or there is a vacation coming up.

Q1- To what extent are you “anticipating” the good events? 

Before a good thing happens, do you look forward to it in ways that give you pleasure in the present?

Some people are very good in anticipating good events. They are thrilled at the prospect of an upcoming weekend, or a school reunion. A colleague was anticipating a weekend trip and hoping to see some deer and ions.

Q2- When the event is taking place, to what extent are you "savouring the moment”?

Do you feel fully appreciable of good things that happen to you? 

A dear colleague, Aparna Jain, who has a little home garden, found immense joy, when she found a beautiful flower bloom from a creeper; which, she had nurtured for many months. She was in the moment when she was talking about the loving care that she imparts to the plants in her house.  

Q3- When the event has taken place can you “reminisce” or bring back happy memories from the event? 

Do you enjoy looking back on happy times from my past?  

A colleague Sundar, can vividly recall the images, of 25 years gone by of a midnight phone call from a friend informing with the joyous news of passing the toughest Chartered Accountancy examinations. A colleague Ajay Sharma can vividly recall the birth of his lovely and vivacious daughter on the 10th of October. 

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this. ― Henry David Thoreau 

Fred Bryant is a researcher in the field of Psychology from the Loyola University in Chicago. In his seminal book called savouring – A New Model of Positive Experience” has researched a new model on how individuals savour everyday events. As we know, research has proven that our capacity to savour the positive events in our day-to-day life depends on our own emotions and thought processes. 

They proposed that individuals can savour an event by either; Anticipating events that are going to take place or savouring them in the moment they are occurring, or reminiscing about events that have occurred in the past. Basically individuals can derive joy from an event in three different time frames. They developed a questionnaire or an inventory called the Savouring Beliefs Inventory to measure the beliefs of an individual to be able to savour the same event three different times. 

He and his colleague Joseph Veroff, conducted six studies validating the Savouring Beliefs Inventory that was designed to gauge the perception of a person’s ability to derive happiness by anticipating future positive events, savouring positive moments as they are occurring, and reminiscing about past positive experiences.

Forever is composed of nows.   ― Emily Dickinson

We are constantly surrounded by awe. The sunrise and sunset to begin with are one of the most beautiful moments in a day. Some people found a moment when they were transfixed when they found their children discover the workings of a camera completely on their own. You find awe in a garden in the wonderment of nature, in the form of a tree growing from a sapling to its full majesty. For some people, nature has created nothing more beautiful than the falling of rains on hot day. Some people find awe when they watch Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson, take common kitchen ingredients and create a culinary delight in their kitchen.

Some find pleasure in the wisdom of the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey and some in the literary genius of Stephen Fry. We are certainly transfixed when the flag of the nation goes up and thousands of people across time-zones forget everything and sing the song of their nation in one voice. For me personally, I am transfixed with airplanes. How thousands of people have taken the contraption the Wright Brothers invented added years of research in physics, chemistry, mathematics, aerodynamics, engineering, physiology and created a marvel that can make tonnes of steel and wire and human beings fly.  

The point being made is that there is “awe” everywhere. Maybe that is why, “awesome” has become a common part of the teenager dictionary. I hope they keep finding something awesome in every alternate sentence. We find awe anywhere and everywhere and every single moment in time we look for awe. We can find awe in the present, in the past and in the future.   

Hope is the magic carpet that transports us from the present moment into the realm of infinite possibilities.  --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

So what were the results the Bryant discovered? 

They found people reported higher savouring scores were correlated with satisfaction in life. People who could savour more demonstrated better optimism and a sense of control in the events taking place around them. They reported higher will power or self-regulation. Higher SBI was correlated with higher fulfillment in life and self esteem. It even impacted the ability to derive pleasure form social relationships. 

Here is where it becomes more interesting; SBI was negatively correlated with neuroticism, feelings of guilt, hopelessness, depression, and the number of unhappy incidences in their lives. 

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. ― Benjamin Franklin

What does it mean to you and me. 

How can we anticipate the good events? 

It is simple. Just ask yourself, what is the best thing you are looking forward to in the next 4-8 weeks. You will find so many events. The visit of a friend, an upcoming birthday, a long weekend or a huge sales presentation ( I just love them). 

Just pause for a few moments and live the anticipation. Most people do not anticipate the joy that future holds, because they do not want to be disappointed. Let me make a case. Think about it, the small fraction of probability, should not stop you from deriving the pleasure which can make you work a little bit harder or be more creative.

Maybe when you are deriving the pleasure from the anticipation, you can think through some creative ideas of how to overcome the obstacles that will lead to disappointment. Positive thoughts like these might just open up doors to the solution of possibilities to the problems that seem to overwhelm you, why not give yourself the chance. Snatching a few moments of anticipation, when you are feeling down, a bit tired or a bit lonely is perhaps an antidote worth trying. 

Being in the moment? 

The best example of not being in the moment was a cartoon that appeared in the New York Times. In the first panel it showed a man sitting at his work desk, imagining himself playing golf. In the second frame, he is at the golf course and imagining himself in bed with his wife. In the third frame, he is in bed with his wife, and he is thinking about….his office. Being in the moment is the easiest to state and the most difficult to accomplish, when the events that you anticipated are going exactly as per plan. Maybe the hotel that you booked was not as nice as you anticipated. 

When you are talking to someone, the best way to be in the moment is to make eye contact and smile. Give the person or task your full attention, even if means keeping your smartphone in your bag. 

A good way of practicing being in the moment or being mindful is to use your less dominant hand (left hand for right handed people and right hand for lefties) for function that your normally not use them for. Use your other hand to say; open  doors, shelves, locks or drawers. Use your less dominant hand to carry your bag and remove articles from your bag. Scientists have proven that when you conduct a simple exercise like this you can actually increase your ability to stay in the moment. 

How can you reminisce about an event? 

Here is an interesting intervention that Sonja Lyubomirsky recommends. 

Select one experience that made you joyous. Spend 15 minutes each day for three days. If you cannot think of an event, look around your house or office for a memento. It could be a holiday souvenir. It could be a prize you won in school. It could be a prize that your child won in school. It could be a gift someone gave to you. It could be a wedding album of a loved one. Conjure up the images of the memento.

Think about how you are better off today because of the memento? 

Think about the experience. How did you feel? How does your body feel?  You can write about it in a diary. You can talk about it and record it in your smart phone. 

Along with sad memories that pull us down, we have made so many fond memories, which gives life its meaning. Perhaps it was a bitching session with a friend undergoing a hard time; which resulted in mirth of laughter. It could be the help you were extended by someone unexpected. It could be the end of an ordeal like an examination result or a painful divorce. 
The choice is yours. The experience of every moment of awe can be multiplied two times or three times over when you can anticipate it, when you can be in the moment as it happens and of course reminisce about it. 

Fred Bryant and his colleagues, and many scientists after him, have amassed the evidence in favour of savouring events across three time frames. The choice to multiply the joy in your life is yours. It is only when we are completely in the moment, that we will bring to the fore the abundance that surrounds us.  

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind – Winston Churchill