Carl Rogers describes being in the present one of the signs of health he has observed in people at the end of a therapeutic process.
The process involves “an increasing tendency to live fully in each moment…
For the person who was fully open to his new experience, completely without defensiveness, each moment would be new. The complex configuration of inner and outer stimuli which exists in this moment has never existed before in just this fashion.” Consequently such a person would realize the ‘What I will be in the next moment, and what I will do, grows out of that moment, and cannot be predicted in advance either by me or by others…’ ”
“One way of expressing the fluidity which is present in such existential living is to say that the self and personality emerge from experience, rather than experience being translated or twisted to fit preconceived self-structure. It means that one becomes a participant in and an observer of the ongoing process of organismic experience, rather than being in control of it.”
“Such living in the moment means an absence of rigidity, of tight organization, of the imposition of structure on experience. It means instead a maximum of adaptability, a discovery of structure in experience, a flowing, changing organization of self and personality.”
“…It involves discovering the structure of experience in the process of living the experience. Most of us, on the other hand, bring a pre-formed structure and evaluation to our experience and never relinquish it, but cram and twist the experience to fit our preconceptions, annoyed at the fluid qualities which make it so unruly in fitting our carefully constructed pigeonholes. To open one’s spirit to what is going on now, and to discover in that present process whatever structure it appears to have – this to me is one of the qualities of the good life, the mature life, as I see clients approach it.” (On Becoming a Person, Carl Rogers, pp. 188-189)
Rogers’ elucidation of what it means to live fully in the present moment rather nicely complements Frankl’s concept of meaning-of-the-moment. Frankl takes what Rogers is saying a step further with his premise of a basic trust in life.
By trying to rigidly control what will happen next, we’re not open to it. When we trust that life is ultimately guiding us to where we need to go, then we can be open to our experience.
Openness to experience involves being flexible in response to whatever happens. As the Yiddish saying goes, ‘Man plans and God laughs.’
This doesn’t mean saying ‘Everything is for the good’ as if this absolves me from needing to correct wrongdoing. Trust is a dance. Alongside trusting in where life is leading me, I’m responsible for leading myself.
My life has meaning and what is happening right now is an opening to that hidden meaning. Experiencing the present moment from this frame of reference, everything is grist for the mill. There is nothing to fear. Mistakes are for learning from. Feelings are for being aware of what we need from ourselves and from others. Perceptions are for awareness of the needs of others and for taking a position on right and wrong.
Going with the flow is a dance, involving human action, response from life, again followed by human action. I am responsible to dance with life. (The Doctor and the Soul, p. 27)