18 Reminders To Live In The Moment, Reach For Our Phones Less and Pay More Attention May 31, 2014 17:39

  1. Joanna Goddard wants to know, "Would you take a phone break?"
  2. This Is Your Brain On Mobile according to Jeremy Vandehey.
  3. David Sedaris (Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls) on the inexplicable importance we place in proof: “I've become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magnificent Brueghel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof. It's not ‘Look what Brueghel did, painted this masterpiece,’ but ‘Look what I did, went to Rotterdam and stood in front of a Brueghel painting!’”
  4. Comedian Louis CK on why you should just live your life. (Which only runs from 4:01-4:06, but the rest of it is worth saving for another time.)
  5. In the recent Disney film Saving Mr. Banks, among its other nuggets of wisdom, when Paul Giamatti’s character, Ralph, confesses this.
  6. Nate Damm, author of Life On Foot: A Walk Across America, on the beauty of living slowly.
  7. Within the first few seconds, you know just how painful this will be to watch. 
  8. Louis CK (again) on how social media has changed our appreciation of the present. 
  9. Actress Emma Thompson's exaggerated and humorous, if not entirely accurate, response to Vanity Fair when asked if she'd ever join Twitter.
  10. Editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Arianna Huffington gave us a new way to consider mindfulness through the heart.
  11. Anne Lamott as shared by Maria Popova on not letting perfectionism stop you from living your life. 
  12. That time Robert De Niro reminded us that life is short. 
  13. And even though I already knew that, it never hurts to be reminded in other ways and by other people.
  14. Author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) on the battle we face between chasing the moment or just living within it: “Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time--when pursued like a bandit--will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. At some point, you gotta let go and sit still and let contentment come to you."
  15. Tattly and James Victore on how to be a warrior for today and not a worrier about tomorrow.
  16. This ever-pertinent reminder from Annie Dillard and Explore via Brainpickings that the big picture of our lives is constructed mainly from our moments of smallness, our daily doings, the ones that drift over us without any recognition at all. 
  17. And, because let’s face it, another time when Louis CK comedically told the brilliant truth on just being a person. (0:55-1:07)
  18. And just one more. (41:21-42:10)