Maximizing Life

I’ve found my impulse to maximize everything can have a surprising effect: it can actually diminish everything.  

On the surface, the desire to maximize - to make the most of everything - seems inherently good.  But always looking for what could be better, working on the next step, trying to get two activities into a one-activity time slot -- these kinds of efforts dim the luminous now. Anxious striving for a better tomorrow comes at the exceptionally high price of anxiety today. 

Life is precious and not to be wasted, but a persistent grasping for more or better or simply different is just as much a waste of life as apathy; neither anxious maximizing nor empty apathy let us be truly present or fully alive to the present moment. The present moment is fleeting in length but infinite in depth. The illusion of intense maximization is that we’re packing more into each moment. The reality is that this packing often provides breadth at the cost of depth.

It’s a treasured state of heart and mind to release anxiety about the shortness of the moment in order to be able to fully plumb the depth on offer. This is a key goal of mine for 2020, and I still have a long way to go. Are you on this journey too?