Embracing the Present: Unveiling the Parallels between Living in the Now and Dementia

There's a lot of talk about living in the present moment and how that's what we should all strive for. But what does it really mean? From pure experience, I find myself living quite a bit in the now. I take each day as it comes and do very little planning. It usually works out just fine. The advantage is that there's no stress, and I see things clearly as they unfold.

But there are also some issues. I've been living for a long time now with a sense of absence. My sense of what I've done and what I'm going to do simply doesn't exist. There's this vague unease of not having a grip on where I've been or where I'm headed. I just end up somewhere.

​Living in the present moment is probably a lot like living with dementia. The only difference is that it's a voluntary quality one can work towards or perhaps need to counteract.