I'd rather be here now. Where is that again?

Here is a nice here.

Before we had memes, we had bumper stickers. A few years ago, while I was stuck in heavy traffic I saw one that said:  

I'd rather be here now.

While our car-herd crawled along, I continued to think about that. I was still thinking about it many years later. 

A few weeks ago, with the holidays looming, you couldn’t turn around without bumping into reminders about living mindfully, or, "here."

I'm a fan.

There is not a better lifelong habit than being in the moment, even if it takes many of us half a life to figure out what that means.  Lived-in moments are what will teach you about everything – you, your persons, things that are bigger than you, the truth of your life and the depth of your love. 

It is a mystifying and sometimes maddening thing about life that many opposing things can be true at once. You are where you are because you had or have reason to be, and you must honor that. But if you’ve started looking out the window a lot, you must honor that, too, because "here" evolves, as it should.

I am a believer in feeling answers, more than intellectualizing them; posing a question to ourselves and feeling what our gut says. But the noise of everyday - a thing that kills reflection - is hard to cancel. 

And so here is a suggestion that is worth considering if you are beginning to feel both the thrill and fear of new "here" questions but can't be still and quiet enough to feel your answers. 

It’s both simple and a bit painful, but it works and it is this: get up early. 

I mean it. 

Some of you should get up really early.

In the quiet, teach yourself to imagine the moment you're in one year from now, five years maybe, doing exactly what you are doing right now, more or less, or something else.  More of what? Less of what? What else?

In the quiet, picture a route you took to get to what you wanted. Imagine telling someone, "first, I..." and "then I..." First you did what? Then, you did what? Start thinking about first-and-then.

I did this right after I had newborns, when I felt like I was always trying to hop a moving bus. I liked my life so much but I was not living in the “here” as much as the “later on and after that.”

They were always up before sunrise, and so, I started getting up before before-sunrise. 

A day that hasn’t started yet is a gift. The pocket of time when not a soul even knows you’re awake is yours for the taking. You belong to nobody.  

Right now, some of you belong to way too many people, and not necessarily the ones who matter most, like you and your loved persons.

If only for a half hour, belong only to yourself, because first and foremost and until the end of time, you will. You will always share yourself, give of yourself, but you will always be the one who knows you best, and hopefully, believes in you most. 

If you are one of so many people who don't take the breaks they know they need, I have three things to tell you. 

First, getting up early may be the only space you’ll get in your day to do the “want to” thinking about your life vs. the “said I would” kind that makes it all about finishing things, not beginning them. 

Second, everybody wakes up with the choice to visualize and actualize the days, or just get through them. Because we are partners with our lives, not witnesses to it, our job is to manage the "here" of it, each one of those days at a time.  

And finally, if you are poised for change but are finding that answers won't come right away, know that mindfulness is what walks you to the door of resolve. Don't rush it. When the time comes, you will decide whether it's about changing or keeping the "here," but with new operating instructions. 

Until then, get up early. It hurts for a minute, but it's free. Then, let your mind wander until your awareness of "here" begins to show you that changes in small things can change all things.