Now-Oriented Living

If you find yourself doing many things at one go, e.g. munching food, talking to your spouse, checking your emails on your Blackberry, planning next week's work schedule, thinking about yesterday's soccer game and watching TV, all at the same time, then may I propose to you more fruitful way of life: Now-Oriented Living (NOL).

I define NOL as living at the moment for the moment, i.e., if you are eating, you would be focusing your mind on chewing, swallowing and savouring every bite; if you are talking to your spouse, you would be listening attentively and responding accordingly.

But why NOL? Isn't multi-tasking more efficient? Here're 3 big reasons (H³):

Happiness: NOL releases you from past negative experiences and future worries to enjoy the moment as it is. Of course, we can learn much from the past and we can succeed if we plan carefully for the future - a separate time must be set aside for these activities but they should not be mixed with other activities.

Health: NOL enhances both physical & mental spiritual health.

• Physical: One of the most neglected healthy activities is chewing our food well. Most of us don't think much about chewing because we usually "utilise" our meal times to think/do other things. By allowing one to focus during meal times on the eating activity only, NOL promotes the sufficient chewing of food which would not only help us to digest our food better but to help prevent/fight infectious diseases and even cancer too! Find out more here! Of course, NOL helps in many other ways too for our physical health through good exercise, sleep and even sex!
  

• Mental: If one is focused on the present moment, it is unlikely that depression and other mental illlnesses can seep into one's life. Moreover, by focusing our mind, we sharpen it and unleash its immense power and creativity!

High Quality: Finally, it is obvious that if we are focused on doing just the thing we are doing at the moment, we would certainly do it much better than if we are divided in our attention!