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Mindfulness & intentionality

·3 mins

Mindfulness:

  • I learnt something interesting recently (from the internet though, so who knows how true this actually is): we humans spend majority of our time in the past or the future, but not in the present. I think some proportion of the remaining time, maybe a big proportion at that, goes into mindlessly browsing the internet, watching entertainment, etc., so quite possibly we don’t spend any meaningful time in the present moment.
  • I have observed this happening to myself: my kid would be playing around me, I wouldn’t have my phone with me and assume that I am living in the present, but then suddenly I realize I don’t even know what the kiddo is doing or how he is expressing himself. That was because my mind was wandering somewhere else.
  • This where the idea of mindfulness comes in. I don’t fully grok it right now but think it’s a way to live in the moment. So far, I’ve only thought about getting rid of my phone but that isn’t sufficient. What happens if I keep it aside? If I get bored or my mind wanders away, that’s great but what if that happens so much that I never enjoy the present?

Intentionality:

  • A somewhat related idea to mindfulness is intentionality - this may not be a technical term but what I call the idea in my head: “everything for a reason and a purpose”. As an example: my skip manager had flew into Seattle from his hometown and wanted the team to work from the office. On the first such day, I finished work at 5 and was idling away without any purpose. The skip came in, opened up beers, called everyone who was still there and started an impromptu party. I reached home around 7:30 pm, which was pretty late given Sneha and the kiddo were alone. I realized that day that I didn’t even stop a moment to ask myself if I wanted to be at that party and, if yes (for whatever brownie points I could’ve earned with the skip), for how long. If I had decided to stay until X pm, I should’ve left irrespective of whether I was the first one to leave.
  • Constantly checking with yourself, throughout the day - on what you want to do and why - is a difficult task. But probably necessary to lead a meaningful life. Just the other day, I caught myself thinking about the biases I faced at work for 2-3 years. That issue is in my past, I’ve already introspected on that a lot and there’s more for me to learn from it. Why was I then still thinking about in the middle of the day?