Being Present is a Skill

My friend texted me this quote today:

Mark Vancil explains MJ’s mindset the best. He says in the doc that “Most people struggle to be present and try to meditate, do yoga, travel to find themselves, and so on. Most of us live in fear because we project the past into the future. Jordan’s greatest gift was not that he good jump high, run fast and shoot a basketball, it was that he was completely present that was the separator.”

Good players who could otherwise become great are handicapped because they think about failure. “Why would I think about missing a shot I haven’t taken yet?” Jordan didn’t allow what he couldn’t control to get inside his head. You might not have this superhuman ability like MJ but consider your internal dialogue when approaching challenging tasks.

It’s an interesting idea that MJs greatest strength is not his basketball prowess but his ability to stay present.

Being present is the closest thing I’ve found to a universal answer. Life is lived in the present moment, and all peak experiences are ones in which we aren’t thinking of the past or the future but the present.

And being present is a skill. One of the best ways I learned to train it is through meditation.