In my last post, I spoke about ‘firsts’. I spoke about a potential standalone exercise of recognising where one is now with respect to how many ‘firsts’ they have in their life, recognising why that might be and then incorporating those reflections in one’s planning going forward.

I think there’s also another angle in which to approach this idea of ‘firsts’, which is more of a real-time approach. I’ve started doing this at random points in the day (given I was writing about ‘firsts’ anyway). There may be something to it, there may not, but I will explain it in case it is of interest.

The idea

It’s essentially a prompt. I imagine it in the vein of training for a ‘beginner’s mind’ from Zen, which from my understanding is recognising that only the present moment exists. We should approach it with the mind of curiosity and openness to learn, because we’ve never experienced this present moment before. I read about this concept and loved it (or at least my interpretation of it from memory), but I found it very difficult to practice in my life and therefore cultivate this life approach. Maybe this prompt would be a good step in that cultivation.

My idea is simply thinking to myself, about whatever I’m doing, ‘this is the first time I’m doing x in y time‘, where x is the thing I’m doing and y is just placing it in time.

Experimentation

I’m still experimenting with the formulation for this, but, for example, I was walking down the street near my home and I had the thought ‘this is the first time that I’ve walked down this street with the sun bright like this in a few weeks.’

Other times:

‘This is the first time I’m meeting up with K in over 6 months.’

‘This is the first time I’ve noticed a plane flying overhead today.’

I’m not finalised on the ‘y time’ bit, just that I would feel like I was lying to myself if I said ‘this is the first time I’m walking down the street’.

A development of this could be ‘this is the first time that I’ve done x now’ or ‘in this moment’.

This is the first time that I’m writing this sentence in this moment.

I think it could also take the form of a question: ‘what am I doing for the first time in this moment?’ I like questions because they are quite active; requiring inquiry and coming up with an answer. 

LATE EDITION DEVELOPMENT: ‘this is the first time I’m doing x in y place in z time’. To really locate myself in space and time, anchoring myself to the present. I am in the kitchen at this moment writing ‘in y place’ for the first time in this post!

Testing this idea

A real test of this is commuting to work on the Tube (London metro). Three or four days a week, I spend half an hour each way on a pretty busy Tube line going to work. Is it my favourite place in the world? Not really. I can think of other places I would rather be. But in the current iteration of my life I can only be in one place at a particular moment, and often that’s the Tube.

It could be easy for me to trivialise this exercise, because there are a thousand people on the tube, so naturally one starts to get a little less curious about the thousand and first person you see when you’ve ridden the Tube for 8 years. It’s hard to be earnest. It’s hard to find ‘firsts’.

Anyway, the other day I was on it and asked myself ‘what am I doing for the first time in this moment’? You know, I stand up a little straighter. My eyes widen a little bit. I can sense my breath. I started to pay attention to my surroundings a little more. I started to look at the other people in the carriage with curiosity. This is the first time that I’ve seen this woman, this man, this book that someone is reading. I started to wonder about these people, why they are the way they are.

I’m finding it an interesting prompt, because it’s making me aware in a slightly different perspective. I don’t know what it is, maybe recognition of the impermanence of the moment. It’s the first time I’m doing this, and then it’s the first moment I’m doing that, but none of these first moments lasts forever, I can’t keep any of it just as it is as a darn first. 

It’s also making me observe the moment with more curiosity and ask ‘what is fresh here, what am I doing for the first time?’, or even passively ‘what is happening for the first time’? 

I think granularity is an important aspect of this. I have to really go in to notice what is unique, seeing what I previously considered to be the mundane in a new light.

What am I after? Why bother with a little titbit prompt? 

I think:

1. It seems to help with me becoming more aware. 
2. It seems to help me recognise the impermanence of the situation I am in. I want to feel humbled by impermanence, and grateful that the moment exists. I get to do what I’m doing and I’m the only person with this unique view in this place and this time. What a blessing.
3. If I want to really find those granular items, I need to focus on the senses. I could open my eyes a little wider than usual, breathe a little bit of a deeper than usual, prick my ears a bit to listen more intently, Become aware of my proprioception i.e. notice my body.
4. It helps to recognise that I exist and am always doing something, so I can choose what I am indeed doing, whether that’s me doing something for the first time or choosing to do an activity I’ve done before. Either way, it’s the first time I’m doing it right now.

The issue with prompts, at least for me, although I imagine it would be a common human experience, is that they lose their freshness and therefore their salience. Let’s see how this one pans out. Maybe I should set it as a reminder every 2 weeks on my phone, so just enough time passes if it slips out of fashion for me!

Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions!