Many years ago (sometimes last century) I attended a retreat given by a spiritual teacher I was interested in engaging with. The whole retreat was premised on a simple question:

'What if being here meant you were in the right place at the right time?'

It was early days in my own spiritual unfolding and, looking back, I was only able to hold a very superficial understanding of what was being pointed to. From memory, I thought he was emphasising the need to take the retreat seriously as an opportunity to find liberation here and now. And I am sure that was part of the intention.

But years later I see much more wisdom contained within the phrase 'right place, right time' than I did then, and I find myself wanting to explore what it might mean for how we engage with life as it arrives on our doorstep.

Many of us live as though we are in transit to the next moment. Like travellers passing through a town on our intended route, we are already focused on the next destination before we have fully arrived at the one we are in. Our lives become preoccupied with the next task to complete, a new problem to solve, another stage to reach, yet another box to tick—and the list is endless.

From one perspective this makes perfect sense. We are deeply conditioned to scan for threats and opportunities, and the ability to anticipate what lies ahead has clear evolutionary advantages.

Yet there is another way of inhabiting our “coordinates” in life.

Life is Not a Waiting Room