Speak Easy Note #43 - On Being Present

From time to time, I receive a personal communication that feels significant and universal, and I decide to incorporate and fictionalize it into my blog posting:

A friend wrote:

“ ... It is the building up of things. It is that the dog is very ill and probably dying, and that my wife was so upset on the phone, and that I did not come home and kept working ... as I do when things are bad. By the time I got home tonight my wife was in bed asleep, as I knew she would be.

And the years flash by and will soon be gone altogether. And everything feels like a challenge. I spent most of the afternoon on something that I used to be able to accomplish in half an hour, and ended up with an unsatisfactory result.


My children do not have easy lives. There are no easy lives. The least I can do is to be there for them, to watch and to listen and to bear witness to their struggles with life. Which I know is important to them. But I am not there. And what I set out to do today and did not do at all was to reset my priorities. To see my oldest son who has opened a new business. And to see more of my other children.  I have wisdom for them but I am not there. And, instead, an unsatisfactory day wasted on an unsatisfactory task that would have been better not to bother about at all, let alone be there instead of being with my wife who really needed me. And to think I told a former colleague the other day that, yes, I would be happy to take on a new design project for a couple of days a week for a year or two. Why did I agree to this!  And there is no comfort anywhere.


At the very moment I was writing this last thought, I received an amusing email from my middle son and replied to it humorously. For some reason, he and I find humor where others don't.  Since he was a tiny boy, we stand there sometimes, tears streaming down our faces, helpless with laughter. And no-one else understands why we are laughing.


So comfort is there after all ...”

My response:

Being present. All too troubling to consider, as I leave my elderly mother in Virginia, to return to New York after a ten-day visit. The range of emotions is vast.  I can identify with you and feel how you are grappling with this. Chastising yourself though is hardly the point.  It is a struggle being there for everyone. It has to start with being there for you, yourself, first. And the rest will follow. After all, in the end, for each of us and for every single moment we live and breathe, there IS only you, alone. The best part of life is being truly present for each moment and being there to support and share with others. Each "engagement" with those we love - and often, even with total strangers - is what makes life full of wonder. And yet, we are always separate and apart and can only be fully present for ourselves. Those who sacrifice their own lives for others can often be seeking what they cannot find in themselves.

Remain wholly present in life and contribute as much to the world and to your children as you can. Laughter till the tears run is just one way of being present and connected. Those moments remain within us, keeping us present for others when we are far apart and, alas, ever SEPARATE.


"Presence is more than just being there."
Malcolm S. Forbes

Until the next time,
The Wordsmith
Author of
SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success