Are You Here? Or Are You There?

I’m slowly losing the ability to be 100 percent here.

Or 100 percent there.

Too used to being in multiple places at the same time.

For example, typing an email while on the phone with my partner. Watching a movie and answering a text from friends at the same time. Driving while listening to a podcast. Cooking dinner and watching CNN. 

Seriously, how often do we do just one thing at a time anymore?

There’s something terrifying about being in the moment doing just one thing, isn’t there? 

The world is a kind of scary place to be fully immersed in right about now.

In Boulevard, the last movie Robin Williams was in, his character shared about liking hotels.

“Sometimes it’s nice to be somewhere else,” he said.

It is nice to be somewhere else at times. Like most people, I love to travel and see the world. 

But when I’m doing that, I’m clearly not at home, am I?

How often are you here, but you’re actually somewhere else? 

With our minds, we can travel in a nano-second. 

I heard a speaker once say he was on his cell phone at the dinner table, and his 9-year-old daughter said, “Dad, you are not here. And you are also not there,” she said, pointing to the phone.

But, if we’re not here, and we’re not there, where are we?

We are floating in that Land of In-Between. 

The Land of In-Between is compelling. We can access multiple worlds from that space. We can have our fingers in many things at once. We can move faster.

But when we are in that Land, our minds and hearts are split. 

You can tell when that’s happening, right? When someone appears to be with you, but you know they are not 100 percent with you?

I used to believe I was a great multitasker. I could tackle several things at once and fly through my to-do list. But I have since learned there is no such thing as multitasking—what is really happening is my brain is moving at lightning speed from one thing to the next to the next to the next to the next. 

And it’s exhausting, because we are never in one place for long.

Studies suggest that multitasking hurts productivity because it reduces performance, increases mistakes, and reduces comprehension. 

We can multitask to the detriment of our exhausted minds and hearts. 

Computer programmer and NPR technology commentator Ellen Ullman said, “Multitasking, throughput, efficiency—these are excellent machine concepts, useful in the design of computer systems. But are they principles that nurture human thought and imagination?”

Think about it: When we are in that Land of In-Between, we are in a reactive state. Reacting to this and responding to that. Flicking through this and flicking through that.

That means we are not creating. 

We are not in creative space.

What is your Land of In-Between like? Is it filled with vibrancy, art, relationship, and innovation? Or is it like an institutional hallway—bland and non-descript because your senses are somewhere else?

Not much color in my Land of In-Between. 

There’s a long to-do list there. 

Fogginess. Anxiety. Not much room to breathe. 

They say if you want to be more present in the here and now, create some friction between yourself and other places. Friction slows us down. For example, leave your phone in your home office. Put the remote far away from where you are sitting. Leave your iPad in the living room rather than bring it to bed with you. Physically go on a walk after dinner and leave your air buds at home. 

There are a few things I do where I am solely in the present. Hiking, biking, working out—and writing.

In those moments, I follow the now to where it takes me next.

But so much of my day I’m in that Land of In-Between. 

Victor Frankl once said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Growth and freedom! 

In the Land of In-Between, there’s tons of stimulus—that is what makes it so compelling. 

But there’s no space to choose a response. At lightning speed, there’s little choice.

Little breath.

Little growth.

And little freedom.

Will you meet me Here in the Now?

Have a comment? Please share on social media or contact Kellie here.