In a 2022 interview with People magazine promoting her program to empower young girls through sport, professional tennis player and mental health advocate Naomi Osaka said: "For me, the biggest lesson I've learned is to try to be present in each moment. It's easy to lose sight of how far you've come, but I've been prioritizing trying to live in the moment and enjoy the journey."
Write an essay that argues your position on the extent to which Osaka's claim about embracing the present moment is valid.
Anyone who has ever sat in a yoga class has had to sit cross-legged and heard the sing-song chants of inhale, exhale, with “focus on your breath” thrown in at some point. Meditation, according to Buddhism, is more than just focusing on one’s breath. It is letting go of all irrelevant thoughts and focusing on the concrete details of the present. Buddhism further dictates that living in the present is the key to a happy life. Life is a linear sequence of moments, and Buddhism advises neither skipping ahead nor straying behind. However, as with all abstract religious principles, does this apply to everyday life, and everyday people? Many would argue that the present can be too insignificant, too painful, or too dull to live in.
However, it is fallacious to assume that the statement is true just because a majority of people agree on it.
The choice between staying in the present or considering the past and future is essentially the choice between making everyday decisions based on the present or the past. Different people advocate different versions of these decision making paradigms, to pick one for ourselves, we must consider the type of person who advocates those decisions.
Athletes like Osaka advocate living in the present as, for them, every shot, every point, every moment counts. For an athlete, time is of the essence. It is not for an athlete to waste precious milliseconds on regret or anticipation while making decisions- where to swing, how far to reach.
On the other hand, most stock-market investment professionals would consider decisions based solely on the present to be extremely foolish. The present is heady and fleeting, and one must not be intoxicated by “bubble”- fleeting movements of the market- and fail to consider the long-term trend. Although an athlete can’t afford regret or anticipation, as time is of the essence, an investor faces more repercussions for not considering the past and future. The present is a close-up view- it doesn’t offer perspective at all. Using a close-up view, temporary moments of extreme joy and sadness seem all-consuming- people are often swept away by tides of immediate grief and sorrow, and perspective, or not living in the present, would help with that.
Most of us aren’t athletes and don’t have split-second stakes for the most part. Our lives are more similar to the stock-broker example- try not to get too caught up in the present. However, does this simply mean that we should base all our decisions on the investor paradigm, that we should never live in the present? Perhaps it would be better to align our choices with the situation rather than the just broadly choose whether to live in the present or not- if the situation involves a ticking clock- like driving, or a test- it may be better to live in the moment, while it may be better not to fully live in the moment when considering inter-personal relationships, or things that are built over long stretches of time.
Additionally, it would bring us greater happiness to be more present for low-stakes, enjoyable situations- the small joys of life-eating a delicious dessert, enjoying a beautiful day, or hearing a good song.
In conclusion, though the average individual is generally advised not to get too swept up by living solely in the present, living in the moment is also very important for managing time-crunch situations, as well as truly appreciating low-stakes pleasures.
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