This one time at bandcamp. we were playing around with the size of our nows.
Ok, to be honest, “this one time” was yesterday.
And it wasn’t at bandcamp. It happened in the dojo.
It’s just that—as an elder millennial—I find it really hard to resist dropping an early 2000s pop-culture reference when I get the chance.
It’s one of those weird things we do, like using the laughing-crying face emoji or pretending we’re living our best lives.
But I digress…ah yes! Playing around with the size of our nows.
What does that mean? (Reader in the back shouts: “And how this impact my life bro. Get on with it.”)
Well, imagine that you would walk up to me right now, shake my hand or give me whatever amount of kisses they give in your country, and then, following the sacred ritual of polite society, would ask me the question “How are you?”
Depending on the current size of my now, I would answer that question very differently.
If the way I’m experiencing life right now encompasses 1-2 months, I’d respond:
“I’m good. Traveling a lot, seeing many friends I haven’t seen in a while. I feel excited about that.”
If the way I’m experiencing life right now encompasses 1-2 weeks, I’d respond:
“To be honest I’m feeling a bit stressed. A lot of stuff has to happen in a compressed timeframe. I fell into my old habit of committing to slightly more than I have energy for. And I do want to honor those commitments, but it creates this sense of pressure. Like my skin’s a bit too small for my body.”
If the way I’m experiencing life right now encompasses 1-2 years, I’d respond:
“Working a lot, that’s the main thing I’m aware of. Things are growing and I’m happy about that. But I wish I made more time for the people who matter most to me. To really sit with them for days instead of hours. To be involved with their lives a bit more often, because I’ve been very focused on my own life for a while.”
If the way I’m experiencing life right now encompasses 1-2 minutes, I’d respond:
“Feeling relaxed. Rejuvenated. Inspired. Funny you asked! I’m actually in the middle of writing an email to you.”
All of these are true answers to “how I am right now”.
What changes is the size of my now.
Not just in terms of what I’ll answer, but also in terms of my inner experience.
Sometimes, if there are slow slumbering, heavy things going on in your life over a period of months or seasons, it can pay to make your now extremely small.
When you make your now just a couple of seconds, it can feel radically different.
The things happening the larger time horizons can’t touch it. This second right here is purely yours to enjoy.
And the next one? Who knows what it’ll bring! We’re not even there yet!
On the other hand, when your small now feels like a bit of a struggle, it can be helpful to increase the size of your now.
For example, I tend to dislike filing taxes. (Not sure why, probably a personal thing, not universal.)
But last year, filing taxes felt particularly great to me.
Because I made my now bigger. I could feel the gratitude because each transaction represented a person I had had an exchange with. I could feel the connection with them that this tax represented.
(And I could feel the sense of safety in not getting scary letters from the government the year ahead.)
Similarly, maybe you come across a particularly irksome social media post and it gets you all riled up. But if you increase the size of your now, it stops mattering that much.
Maybe tr0llm@ster69 wasn’t a fan of your new haircut and you were not a fan of his racial slurs. But how’s this month feeling to you?
This also plays out in intimate relationships. If you have petty little arguments, you can make your now bigger and realize how much you love each other through time.
If you are stuck repeating the same argument for months, perhaps you can try making your now infinitely small together. See how the conversation goes in there.
Big nows are useful to give you perspective. To show you why things matter. Or to create a meaningful context for something that’s otherwise hard to be with in the present.
The only downside is they can also be used to ignore that present to a degree.
Small nows are great for not bringing baggage of other spaces into the ones you’re currently in. And for allowing yourself to allow the little things.
It’s hard to get triggered when your now is so small that it passes before you can cling to anything (or resist anything) that happens inside it.
The only downside is if you spend all your time in the small nows, you may find out you forgot to go to work again.
So there’s pros and cons to all shapes and sizes of nows. Neither is superior.
That would be like choosing between seeing the beauty of the earth when viewed from space, or staring at the dewdrops on a leaf.
Instead, my invitation is for you to become aware, at various moments, how big your now is. And to see what happens to that specific moment (or interaction) when you play with changing it.
This can also be interesting to try with a friend. How do you experience your friendship in various sizes of now together?
Wishing you a lot of fun explorimenting with this!