Walden Pond’s Chip Flaherty Lives in the Moment Through Reading

Monday, 11/16/2009

Walden Pond’s Chip Flaherty Lives in the Moment Through Reading

Chip Flaherty on Halloween with two of his four children, Trey and Bridget.

“Live in the moment” - is one of those important adages that is easy to say but difficult to practice. But it is important - medical research indicates that those who can live in the moment increase their longevity and improve their brain function. But in this increasingly busy and noisy world, how can anyone live in the moment?

Well, good news: there are Walden Media products that can help you live in the moment. The bad news: you have to read this entire blog before I share these products with you.

First, a couple of observations. This past Halloween, I saw a Spiderman/dad with his kids in tow, engaging in the familiar ritual of knocking on doors and getting candy. In our Spiderman/dad’s hand he held not a web-shooter, but a Blackberry, which he would occasionally look at and shoot off (not a web, but) an e-mail.

Now my first thought was Spiderman on the World Wide Web presents a possible one liner or two, but upon deeper reflection I realized that this was yet another example of how difficult it is to get away now - how truly difficult it is to live in the moment.

Why does it matter that we find a way to live in the moment? Well, in the great book You Staying Young, authors Michael F. Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. note that a failure to live in the moment lessens our longevity (by shortening the telomeres on our chromosomes) and harms our overall brain function (by contributing to the shrinking of our prefronal cortex).

(Name Dropping Alert: You Staying Young is a phenomenal book, which I found out about when I appeared on Doctor Oz’s radio program as a guest. I would be remiss to not mention that Doctor Oz was incredibly personable and well prepared, calling the night before the radio show to make sure that I was all set. When he called, some neighbors were over and they still talk about the night the famous Dr. Oz literally made a housecall.)

With its importance medically established, I began to look for an activity that would allow living in the moment.

Approaching a rotary while driving comes close. For those of you who have never driven in Massachusetts, a rotary is a circle in the middle of a road, a place where a number of other streets converge. From an aerial view it looks like a pinwheel, spinning off cars and streets and presenting driving possibilities and permutations that require focused thought.

However, when approaching a rotary, it is impossible to be solely in the moment because thoughts do creep into your mind - “are my car insurance premiums paid up?” “what is my towing deductible?” “is it time to give public transportation a chance?”

Similarly, parallel parking, which requires concentration, is too attenuated a process to truly galvanize the mind and let one live in the moment. You worry about hitting the car in front of you, hitting the car in back of you, and whether you will be an embarrassingly far distance from the curb when you finally park.

(For these reasons, back when I was dating, I refused to go anywhere that would require parallel parking. Restaurants with valet - great; movie theater with a parking lot - fine; but a romantic, charming cafe with parking on a busy street - a non-starter. There is pressure and then there is first date pressure, trying to parallel park and, once done, having your date ask whether a shuttle will be coming by to transport her all the way to the sidewalk.)

My search for an activity that would allow for living in the moment brought me to the Internet, where I read about a study in England that found that reading is the best way to relax. The cognitive neuropsychologist who conducted the research stated that “losing yourself is the ultimate relaxation.”

I had found my answer. Reading - especially reading for fun, reading for pleasure - is the activity that transports us to a place where tomorrow’s PowerPoint presentation, the car at the mechanic, the oil bill - all disappear for a while. By losing ourselves in a book we find that haven where we can concentrate and relax - where we can live in the moment.

Walden Media books provide great stories, tales well told by talented authors. It is my pleasure, honor and good fortune to have a job where the end result, the end product, is a book - a product that not only entertains but maybe can keep us around a little while longer. Not a bad deal at all.