Whatever you are doing, enjoy it!

Whatever you are doing, enjoy it! You have another option, of course, which is to not enjoy it. Notice what keeps you from enjoying whatever you are doing. It's your thoughts, isn't it? Even if you're experiencing pain, for instance, or something unpleasant, like going to the dentist, if you don't listen to any negative thoughts, fears, complaints, and desires related to that, you won't suffer. You will just have the experience.

Your thoughts about whatever you are doing interfere with enjoying it not only because they are often negative, judgmental, or resistant to the experience, but also because thoughts--even positive ones--remove you from an experience to some degree. Some thoughts don't interfere much with being present and enjoying what you are doing; they just float in and out of your mind, without you paying much attention to them. Other thoughts, however, grab you, and you lose touch with what you are doing and the experience you are having. When that happens, it feels like you are going through the motions or doing something just to get it done.

You can go through life this way if you want, but when you aren't fully in contact with what you're doing, you miss out on the potential joy and pleasure in an experience. Any experience can be interesting, since you have never had it before. And any experience can be enjoyed, because when you immerse yourself in it, you lose the false self (the sense of I or me) and discover the true self, which is always enjoying life. Essence is always in-joy. And from Essence's standpoint, every moment is an opportunity to serve life and to love, which is another source of joy. What if you approached each moment as an opportunity to experience, serve, or love?

The secret to enjoying what you are doing is to get lost in it, to get involved in it. That means getting all your senses involved in it or, more accurately, noticing how all your senses are involved in it. Noticing sensory experience will take you out of your egoic mind (your functional mind is still available) and into the experience you are having. When you're present to the experience you are having, you are in the moment, and that's when you experience Presence, or Essence. The experience of Essence is highly pleasurable, so no matter what you're doing, if you are present to it, it will be enjoyable.