Improv ideas for Life - Part 4

In my continuing series of improv ideas for everyday life, I hope these improv mantras can positively influence your experience and help make your life better. Today's topic is:

Focus on the here and now - be in the moment

Philosophically, improvisation focuses on bringing one's awareness 'into the moment', and on developing a profound understanding for the action one is doing. Sounds like Zen Buddhism, doesn't it? Being aware of your actions and thoughts, and what your senses bring in, in your every day routine. This allows the improvisor to react with a range of options that best fit the situation, even if they have never experienced a similar situation. This skill strongly influences one's competence at work and in their personal life.

But let us defer to the masters. Guess who excels at being in the moment? A child. Watch a child as they play. They're not thinking about what happened yesterday, or what they're going to do later. They're role playing, they're building forts and castles, they're fighting bad guys and nothing else in the world exists. If they get mad or get hurt, they overreact, nothing else matters. But they soon return to normal, happy again, the offending situation forgotten without a grudge. We could use children as inspiration and try to be like them sometimes.

Too often are we caught up in the past or the 'what if' of the future while ignoring the present.

"The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post." ~L. Thomas Holdcroft
"It's not what if, it's what now." ~Author Unknown
"Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present, which very few of us do." ~Jean de la Bruyere