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Living a mindful life path

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“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” —Thich Nhat Hanh •

Walking a path of mindfulness is a lifelong process that can be started as soon as right now. Nothing is required to start being mindful; there are no degrees you have to obtain, and there is no place in life you have to get to. Where you are, as you are, is all you need to start experiencing the world in the present moment. For some people that moment of realization can come as a spark, a change that just takes over your mood and sense of being and propels you to start noticing things you’ve never noticed before.

My own journey into mindfulness started when I was in college. Looking back, I wish I had prepared earlier, I wish I’d had someone to propel me in a direction that would not only match my personality and interests but would also align with my skill set and what I was good at overall. I was sad because I had let myself down, but I felt even worse because I had let my parents down. They were so proud of me for going to college, and even though I knew that the direction of computer engineering wasn’t the right one for me, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them I wanted to switch. If only I had realized in the very beginning that my life path could only be determined by myself, I would have made my decision more critically. None of my growth afterwards would have happened, though, had I not had my breakthrough and had I not found my reason for existence.

To some people the whole idea of finding yourself may sound like a strange concept, maybe even a cheesy one, but it’s so important to stop and reflect on the person we want to be by taking a moment to tap into who we are right now.

Living a mindful path is possible for you as long as you’re open to slowing things down, taking a breather, and being in the moment. As I passed through college and then going forward, I felt more awake than ever. Whenever I would walk to class. I would really see things as they happened, not just on the surface, instead observing them in a way where I felt the interconnectivity of myself and the world around me. In one particular area of my school campus, there was a pathway through the woods that you could walk through as a shortcut; on one side of the road was a tall stone that pointed upwards, seeming to symbolize rising up from the ground and reaching for the sky. On the other side of the road was a dead tree, fallen and rotten, an icon of death and decay, the end of all things. Every time I walked in between these two symbolic trees, I felt a renewed sense of energy and the realization that I could reach as far as I wanted. We are either growing, or we are dying. We can choose. Even though we have a limited time on earth, we can all make the most of the time we have been given.

All of this was simply the start of my mindful path. With each passing year, I learned more and more about myself, my connection to the world, and how I played a role in all of it. I started to realize that my body was the only one I had and that I needed to treat it right, or else I wouldn’t have a vessel to live in to continue forward. This led me onto the path of exercise; I felt so connected to exercising because I knew that by training I was doing the one thing that no one else could do for me. While education was mandatory, only I could make myself healthy and strong with exercise—and it was up to me to be successful at it. For a lot of people, fitness is seen as something we do because we aspire to look better or gain muscles. We rarely see it as a way of loving our body, taking care of it, and shaping it so we can be ready to be to tackle any challenges that come our way.

When we exercise, we aim to take care of ourselves. As I exercised more and more, experiencing my new strength led me to ask myself how much more I was capable of doing. My goal had been to work toward helping other people. Now that I was more equipped to tackle any physical challenges, I had to put that into play. It wasn’t until much later on, however, that I also discovered a second aspect to nurturing your body—maintaining good health. Growing up, I had never had a single desire to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, or try cigarettes. The idea of taking anything that might alter my state of mind just wasn’t enticing enough for me. I felt like being in the moment was enough for me to feel that same sense of high, and I never wanted to become dependent on anything to get me there.

For years I had eaten pretty poorly, not really thinking about my food choices or where my food had come from. I had aspired to be mindful but was still neglecting a huge part of my day-to-day life. This is the journey of a mindful path—as you continue learning and growing, you begin to incorporate more and more changes as you work toward being your best self. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was a vegetarian and was pretty turned off by the things I would regularly eat. I was a heavy consumer of meat, eggs, and pizza. I had always eaten food that was fast, fried, or processed without a second thought as to how it was affecting me. Part of it was the culture I had grown up around and the normalization of bad habits.

When I began to think about where my food came from, there was a level of awareness that had seemed hidden to me before. I had become so used to cultural food norms that I never stopped to realize the harm that came with my choices. That is why in the process of being mindful, it’s important to trace back what comes with our food, and to think about how it was made and the implications of those actions. For example, when we think of eating a hamburger, we see the food as simply a piece of meat that is cooked, seasoned, and eaten. However, before the meat was just meat, it was part of a cow that was born with feelings and the ability to suffer like you and me. No living being wants to die, or would choose to die if the alternative was to live freely. But when we eat, we ignore this truth because it may make us hesitate in eating the hamburger.

Some people will justify the means and say it is just the way things are, but much like with anything, we have the ability to choose to be mindful and act. We can choose to reduce harm and suffering, but that means being mindful of where our food comes from. This process of backtracking is essential if we want to be mindful and aspire to reach our highest potential, whether it’s reconsidering buying clothing that was made by slave labor, food that resulted in the unnecessary suffering of animals, or an argument we got into with someone we care about.

If we wish to truly walk a mindful path in life, we need to start with each and every step we take and ask ourselves: am I walking in a way brings kindness to those around me? This will make you a model for others who are struggling—leading by example—and will help you to become your best self.