WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
Mindfulness, defined as the “quality or state of being conscious or aware of something”, is a phenomenon I have come across recently and decided to look into a bit more. I’ve been reading about and practicing mindfulness meditation, a practice that allows you to train your mind to tune into your everyday awareness and pay attention to the world and how we experience it. I recently listened to the audio book by Danny Penman called ‘Mindfulness’, in a bid to learn more about how to apply the practice to my every day life. This is where the concept of having only 6 years left to live arose..
In Chapter 5 of the audiobook, Danny Penman explained it like this.
“Let’s say you’re 30 years old. We assume that the average life expectancy is 80, so you’ve got 50 years left. Plenty of time? But perhaps you’re only truly aware of every moment for 2 out of 16 waking hours a day…then your life expectancy is only another 6 years and 3 months. You’ll probably spend more time in meetings with your boss!
If a friend had told us that they only had this time left, we would be filled with grief and try to comfort them, yet without realising it we may be daydreaming along such a path ourselves. If we could double the number of hours we were truly alive and enjoying ourselves each day then in effect, we would be doubling our life expectancy. People spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on vitamins and unproven drugs to gain an extra few years of life, but we can achieve the same effect by learning to live mindfully. Simply waking up to our lives.”
I would suggest you re-read the above, it took me a few attempts to fully digest what it meant, and also the effect it could have on my life if I make a change and live mindfully.
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