Dr. Ellen Langer

People take as a baseline being mindless.

When you're not feeling energetic, excited, or at least peaceful, you're not being mindful.

So to feel any of those things, when you're happy, a robot isn't happy, a robot isn't relaxed, a robot isn't serene.

So anytime you're feeling not like a robot, you're experiencing the joys of being mindful.

And again, it's so easy.

All you need to do is be there and recognize that the world we've been brought up in has taught us how not to be there.

Not be there, I think, in some ways to turn control of our lives over to other people.

When people, if you're rushing someplace,

Just slow down, not as a rule, just to see that everything is still going to work.

You know, you still have the same eight hours at work or 24 hours to be alive in a day.

And your mood, your racing is not going to make it happen any better, any faster.

Just to recognize you have options.

Every time you call something by some name, call it by a different name.

Take every taste that doesn't appeal to you and make it tasty for yourself.

I don't know.

It seems to me so sad that people just go about their business oblivious, oblivious to all of the joys that are right before them.

This is a nice takeaway that people often seem to get lost not realizing life only consists of moments.

That's all it is, moments.

And so what am I going to do for the next 20 years now that the kids are out of the house?

Or what am I going to do now that I'm retired?