One essential element of meaningful living is that of intention. Each one of us develops our own patterns of day to day, year-to-year living; these patterns are essentially habitual ways of seeing and relating to the world. For example, we take the same route to work every day without really thinking about it. We dress with whatever is clean and available that day with little thought. We brush our teeth before bed, perhaps even floss every day, because that’s what we’ve always done.
A certain amount of habitual patterns is healthy and adaptive way to operate in the world. But it is also easy for these ways of interacting in the world to become stale, automatic…in a sense thought-less ways of living. Dressing without much forethought is a different experience that thinking intentionally about how you want to present to the world for that day or occasion. Brushing and flossing are great habits, but brushing and flossing because you always have feels very different from brushing and flossing as an act of caring and love to your body. And while driving to work on the same route might be useful, relating to relationship partners or our children in an automated way is similarly disconnected in impact. It takes us away from the moment that is unfolding; the thought-less experience allows us to “be here” and yet not be present. Perhaps you can think of experiences you have had of going through the motions at work, in a relationship, with a hobby.
To shift out of habitual patterns of living and re-engage in your life experience from the driver’s seat, the concept of intention is absolutely key. Operating from intention is about being in yourself –like flying manually, not on autopilot. Living with and from intention is worth doing on a micro-scale—in a sentence by sentence exchange in conversation—and also on a grander scale of planning for the kind of life you value over the coming months and years ahead. Intentional living is essential for creating a preferred future. Here's how you can do it!
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