A wise Zen master once said that if you have a gaining idea in your meditation practice, you have a problem. Mindfulness is about being, although pop culture sells it as a way to become. You want to practice mindfulness to become better than you are. So, what is wrong with that?

I once asked meditation teacher Lisa Ernst how she answers that question. She said, “I tell my students to leave their goals at the mat.” Your goals will get you to the mat, she explained, but once on the mat, the practice is simply about being with yourself and your life as it is.

You can only start where you are to get where you are going, and so you must know and accept where you are in order to see a path. Then, keeping your wheels on the tracks, and returning them to the tracks as necessary along the way, are the present moment tasks. That is how we get things done. This is mindfulness in real time, in your daily life. Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck calls it Everyday Zen.

Our capacity to conceptualize the future is part of what makes us human. Our species would not have survived without the ability to anticipate. And yet we would not have survived by spending too much time in our heads, perpetually wishing for life to be different than it is, or living in regret for mistakes we have made. The balance of imagining a future, learning from the past, and accepting what is true in the moment, is a prescription for real growth and meaningful action.

Living well with ADHD is neither about striving just to keep your head above water, nor perfecting your brain in order to perfect your life. It is about acceptance (of your brain and your life) so you can actualize your vision with your good enough brain. Someone at last night’s ADHD support group suggested that because we do many things exceptionally well, but don’t do everything exceptionally well, we believe we are never good enough. We are not measuring up, even to our own expectations.

When you are mindfully engaged in activity related to your vision, good enough is enough. When you are busy rejecting or perfecting your brain, it is never good enough.

Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till its over.” For those of us with ADHD, it ain’t urgent till it’s urgent. You may not have a normal experience of urgency until you are fast approaching a deadline. Like a cat who isn’t interested in a moth until it flies, you are unconcerned about a deadline until it is flying toward you.

I once asked a bright seventeen-year-old with ADHD why she thought people like us don’t activate until pressed against a deadline. She replied something like this: “I think we don’t really believe the deadline is going to come until we are close to it.”

A sense of urgency is a feeling that follows the thought of something needing your immediate attention. The reason you lack that sense of urgency when faced with routine or boring tasks, or tasks that require sustained mental effort, is simply your neurological difference. You just don’t get that alert from your brain chemistry that neurotypicals get when reminded of a deadline. Medication that stimulates the normal release of your brain’s dopamine can improve the internal alarm system. External alarms, like alerts on your phone or computer, can supplement your brain’s compromised attention manager.

If you have a co-existing anxiety disorder or OCD, you might be an exception. Adults with ADHD who are anxious or compulsive tend to arrive on time for their psychotherapy sessions. Worry is only pathological when it is excessive and protracted. It has a normal function. I would have a better relationship with deadlines if I had a more normal capacity for worrying. Normal worry serves to remind us of this thing called future.

Since you don’t have an effective internal alarm, try using an external alarm. Develop a habit of using the alert function on your preferred electronic device, or keep a paper calendar with you at all times. Then look at it often! Do not use your spouse like a calendar…it is not good for your relationship! If she already is your external alarm, relieve her of that burden. She will be grateful! She doesn’t like that job. She just worries that you will continue trying to rely on your unreliable memory. If your working memory doesn’t work, stop trying to use it. Forget it!

You can live well with ADHD, just as you are, if you are mindful and willing—mindful of how ADHD symptoms affect you, and willing to take charge and use the tools in your toolbox. I am 24 hours ahead of my deadline for posting this blog…thank you!

I learned today what it feels like to have your car alarm go off while you’re sitting in the driver’s seat, parked in front of a friend’s restaurant where patrons…right in front of you…are occupying tables on the covered patio on an unusually warm day for January, eating their lunches within twenty feet of your barking car. One patron walks over to the screened window to see if it is his car that is creating this protracted disturbance. After seeing your flashing lights, he returns to his table…and now you are watching people who are watching you!

I know now what it is like to learn on the job—by rapid trial and error—how to turn off a car alarm when the electronic device on the key chain no longer works because you washed it in the washing machine two months before, and you’ve had to lock and unlock your car the old fashioned way. I know what it is like to appear clumsy in front of others while experimenting to disable the alarm because you have to get out of the car and let all the restaurant patrons see you…the tall guy scrambling out of the little white car…with parking lights flashing in sync with each honk of the horn while you manually lock the car door, successfully silencing the alarm…and after two or three minutes in the spotlight, you walk rapidly from the car and away from the patio, into the front entrance.

No one is hurt…not much time is wasted…your spouse isn’t there to feel embarrassed and annoyed at you…there is no one around who is likely to criticize you…and with years of experience in the involuntary spotlight of your ADHD, with a greater-than-average potential to experience such public episodes, and your greater-than-average capacity for divergent thinking and rapid processing in an emergency, there is no reason to re-experience any of the shame that you felt as a child with your undiagnosed difference. This is living well with ADHD!

Something you recently saw or heard just disappeared from the radar. You know what I mean? Sometimes your memory, vision, or hearing seem to fail you. It doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough to create problems in your daily life. Such events are common among adults with ADHD. These episodes are like magic tricks…now you see it, now you don’t! It makes no sense to people who don’t have a brain that is wired like yours. You lack credibility when you try to explain it. 

You heard the dishwasher stop thirty minutes ago, and you know there are clean dishes that you should put away. You will do it later, of course, because you are in the middle of something. You are always in the middle of something, right? The next day, you open the cabinet and see that there are no clean dishes there. So, you take just one clean dish from the dishwasher for your 15-minute meal. You don’t have time to unload the dishwasher right now. You are always in a hurry, right? By the next day there is a tower of unwashed dishes in the sink because the damn dishwasher is still full of clean dishes!

You got the vacuum cleaner from the closet and started vacuuming the bedroom. The phone interrupted you, and you had a nice, long conversation with your sister. While on the phone, you noticed that the litter box needed to be scooped. After hanging up, you scooped litter and then watered the drooping houseplants. And there were clean dishes in the dishwasher that needed to be put away…remember the dishes? All this time you have been in and out of the bedroom, not noticing the vacuum cleaner. It was there each time you entered the bedroom, but your vision seemed to have acclimated to its presence, and you sort of didn’t see it. Like a magic trick, it became invisible to you. Try explaining that to your spouse!

Your wife insisted that she told you her brother would be passing through and staying overnight on Friday. You agreed to go out to dinner, she said. You even answered yes when she asked if 7 pm would work. But you couldn’t have had that conversation, because you were planning to watch a game on television. You are certain that she never told you. That is something you would have remembered, especially on a game night. She was just taking advantage of your fragile memory. She wants you to feel weak and inferior, right? Of course! She makes up these stories and believes them, and there are no witnesses to prove her wrong. You begin to question her memory. She forgot to tell you that her brother was coming. She forgot because you are just not that important, right? I didn’t think so.

The attention magician might recede if you could stop sprinting and “jog” at a more deliberate pace, start getting regular sleep, exercise routinely, eat healthy foods on a schedule, meditate every morning, and take your medicine or supplements at the same time every morning. You vow to yourself that some day soon, maybe next week, you will start doing those things. But you are too busy right now, and you don’t have time. Time is what other people have. You will begin once there is less stress in your life, right? Other people are just lucky that they don’t have the stressful life you have. 

So…what if that is true? If your life is so stressful, and you don’t have any time, which of these mental hygiene routines should you sacrifice?

Have you ever called yourself stupid for not knowing something that you, or someone else, thought you should know? Did anyone ever say something like this to you, with an incredulous tone: “YOU don’t know what _____ is?” What my fragile ego heard about 25 years ago in response to this question was, “If you don’t know that, you’re an idiot!” After gathering myself, I gave a simple and honest reply that made me feel confident: “I’m sorry…but no, I don’t know what that is…please tell me.”

Having the upper hand, the questioner softened his tone, which was fine with me because he knew something I didn’t. I recall that it was he—and not I—who had made a big deal out of having a ninth grade education, which was my father’s highest education level. Two graduate degree programs didn’t teach me all I ever needed to know. My father was a successful man whose street level wisdom funded my classroom education. My questioner was a talented artist who knew plenty that I didn’t know. But his tone revealed how little he knew about how much I respected him and his work.

When he honored my request to tell me what I didn’t know, my transition from not knowing to knowing took less than a minute. There was a useful takeaway for me from that one interaction. For the past 25 years, I have frequently repeated this mantra: We are all naive—about something—until we’re not.

I’m grateful for the man who is marrying my daughter next spring, and for his spirited family. I’m Greg Focker in this circle of trust, and fortunately, the future father-in-law is not Jack Byrnes. We are visiting the parents in their Charleston neighborhood where alligators sometimes emerge from the surrounding waters (not a metaphorical reference!). The thought of encountering one of these creatures on my morning walks creates a great opportunity to practice mindful awareness.

I’m grateful for the young woman at the Southwest Airlines gate for believing me when we arrived here. I had insisted, after her first fruitless search of the plane for my cell phone, that the phone was definitely there. If she didn’t look again, my phone would travel to Baltimore. I told her precisely where she could find it…left side of the plane by the wing, in the pocket in front of the aisle seat. A second search produced the phone, and our gracious hosts were waiting politely for me at curbside, just outside the baggage claim area. Retired people are so patient!

It doesn’t bother me so much on vacations that I have ADHD. It’s just inconvenient for others, and yet sometimes it can be mildly entertaining. Having left home in a hurry, without my deodorant, was not a problem because Howie, the future father-in-law, uses a spray and was willing to share. When my wife went out with Ellen to get groceries, I discreetly texted her this message: “In the unlikely event that you are going to be in a place where they sell underwear, I wear a medium.” I learned later that her burst of laughter made it impossible for her to be discrete. I’m grateful that my wife can still laugh about such a serious matter…seriously!

I’m grateful for Alan, our hosts’ neighbor who has ADHD. He is among the small—but growing—percentage of African Americans who get diagnosed and treated. After a long and pleasant chat with Alan, I proposed, with sincere empathy, a gift for his wife: Melissa Orlov’s book, The ADHD Effect on Marriage. I told him of my recent ADHD “tricks,” and we talked about what it means to be living well with ADHD. It will not go away, we agreed, but Alan knows that his success in selling medical lab supplies has something to do with his resourceful brain. His family enjoys living in this peaceful community, and my walk in his neighborhood on this foggy morning–and I don’t mean mental fog–begins now.

Please accept this message of hope to everyone who has felt alienated in recent weeks. We all need each other more than ever. We need to recognize our interdependence and embrace our collective strength. We cannot afford be hopeless and cynical about the future. There is work to be done to make sure that no one is left behind.

In our special kind of democracy, it is the responsibility of all three branches of government to represent the interests of all of its citizens. If representation is threatened, we have an obligation to be part of the solution—in some way, big or small— to preserve the principles that are the bricks and mortar supporting our dwelling place. Someone suggested to me recently that we will all benefit from having just one conversation with someone who disagrees with us and find what common needs can be realized from civil discourse.

Respectful dialogue has never been more important. We are a diverse population, and that reality is not going to change. Thank God for that. To live in a diverse culture on a beautiful continent is a gift. Preserving that gift requires compassion and hard work. Unity is more powerful than division.

As adults with ADHD, our differences do not disqualify us from gainful employment, fulfilling marriages, healthcare and other basic rights. The same is true for all kinds of differences that make up the human family. To engage in compassionate action is to give to others what we wish for ourselves.

I wish the best for you and your family, and for your community. May we remain united in love and respect for one another. 

After wasting time in the morning, you decide you don’t want to waste time. So, you put on your seatbelt while you are turning onto the street from your driveway, tie your shoes or put on makeup when stopped at a traffic light, and return a phone call while driving. You apologize and explain why you were late.  You would have been on time except for unanticipated red lights and the bus in front of you. You are always five minutes late…never early or on time, and not even ten minutes late…always five minutes late.

You often say, “There is plenty of time; I’ll do it later.” But when it didn’t get done, you say, “I didn’t have time.” You insist that your family is a priority, but after working inefficiently all day, you choose to work late and rationalize your choice: your work puts food on the table and pays the mortgage, and everyone should understand.

You are going to start exercising tomorrow because you didn’t have time today. You are unaware of talking too much because you are not listening when you talk too much. You deny drinking too much because you drink too much, which requires denial. 

You know the importance of sleep in managing ADHD, but being awake and doing something is more stimulating than going to bed and do nothing. When your ADHD is worse because you didn’t get enough sleep, you say you need to get more sleep. But your idea of “bedtime” doesn’t change from being the moment you realize that you can no longer stay awake. You take medication to be more alert and focused during the day, and you take sleep medication at night because it is easier and faster than developing and sustaining new routines.

You know it would help to have a daily meditation practice, but instead of practicing, you criticize yourself for not practicing. There is nothing worth watching on television, but you keep surfing for something worth watching. You want your spouse to accept you as you are, thereby joining you in denying the effects of the ADHD on your marriage.

You get mentally and physically exhausted because you don’t exercise and don’t eat mindfully…because you don’t have time. Time is what other people have. You don’t know that you are creative because there is no evidence that you are. You don’t protect time for creating and don’t consider that you could learn a craft. You foget such things as classes and teachers (of course, there’s no time for a class).

You devalue yourself because of your low self-esteem, and you have a low self-esteem because you practice devaluing yourself. You buy your thoughts as reality, and you deny reality because it conflicts with your thoughts. You may not know what you feel or think because you confuse feelings and thoughts. You avoid uncomfortable feelings because you prefer not to have them.

You blame external events for your internal state: other people and situations are responsible for how you feel and how you respond. But you don’t like being blamed. Others have to interrupt you because you lose awareness of the listener when speaking. Although you dislike being interrupted, you interrupt others because it is hard to listen while holding in your fragile memory what you want to say.

Instead of making New Years resolutions this season, which may be good for just a few weeks, here is an alternative. Contemplate what you value, and make a list of your intentions as they represent your values. Then commit to practicing returning the wheels to the tracks when you get derailed. You can always begin again, as often and as many times as necessary.

Being responsible means not blaming situations or other people (or yourself), which is like blaming life instead of living it. Take the leap of faith that living well with ADHD is possible. 

I don’t see clients on Mondays, but I always have a long list of tasks for my so-called day off. My to-do list yesterday had fifteen items on it. I worked all day long and got one of the listed items done. If I had included on my list all the necessary things I did, it would have been thirty items long. Every task I completed was a priority, urgent and important, so it seemed. It’s time to call the professional organizer again. Turns out, that was on my list too…seriously!

You have probably heard that adults with ADHD prioritize horizontally rather than vertically, which is a nice way of saying that we don’t prioritize. All tasks on the list are equally important, or unimportant in any given moment, depending on how well our intentions—right now—are lining up with our values.

Phillip Moffitt talks about intentions and values in his book, Emotional Chaos to Clarity: How to Live More Skillfully, Make Better Decisions, and Find Purpose in Life (Hudson Street Press, NY, 2012). Moffitt credits Sharon Salzberg with teaching him years ago, in a meditation retreat, the practice of “starting over.” The lesson was simply to put the wheels back on the tracks without wasting time in self-defeating thoughts.

Emotional Chaos to Clarity is one of the most practical guides to living mindfully that I’ve read. You can have a bad ADHD day any day, for no apparent reason. Today, I will put the wheels back on the tracks. As I discussed with my professional organizer only a couple of weeks ago, keeping my notepad of obligations with me at all times has usually helped me be more seamless in getting things done.

Yesterday, I rushed to make my list and added to it impulsively, neglecting some tasks that were, in fact, both urgent and important. I responded too much to urgent and hardly important tasks (what was popping up in front of me). And I was too proud of myself for starting tasks that were important and not urgent. The pendulum had swung too far the other way, to non-urgent tasks, until the urgent and important tasks grabbed hold late in the day, too late to make it a truly productive day. 

Part of my problem, when this happens to me, is getting stuck in a focused state of awareness rather than maintaining an open state. When making a list, it is challening to repeatedly return to an open state in order to stay mindful of the big picture. The big picture is where we normally shine. Adults with ADHD are exceptional, in my opinion, at seeing how parts go together to comprise a whole picture. We just don’t shift easily between the parts and the whole.

We have to “unplug” our microscopic attention to allow our big-picture mind to access its wide-angle view. This is why practicing mindful awareness is so important for us, not just on the meditation cushion, but in our daily lives.

I recall arriving after midnight in Pacific Grove, California almost 40 years ago, and standing alone beside the Monterey Bay. There was no one else in sight at Lover’s Point Park, and I suspect I was not supposed to be there that time of night…seems I recall seeing a sign. I stood so still and quiet that I could hear my breathing while I absorbed the beauty of a full moon creating a path of white light across the dark water. Then I heard a cracking sound echoing in the still of the night. I was curious. I moved around to line up the path of moonlight and illuminate whatever was making the sound. I spotted an otter lying on its back in the water, cracking shellfish on a stone that was on its chest. It was a Steinbeck moment. 

What if your mind was like a calm bay after midnight, an ocean with no perceptible waves? An ocean has waves, but an ocean is not a wave and is not defined by its waves. It is far more than a container of waves. It contains life…it is life.

Have you ever ruminated so much over a problem, remaining so focused on it that you couldn’t see beyond it. You couldn’t see beauty around you, or think of anything that was going well, because one negative thing dominated your attention. You couldn’t direct your attention because you were like the wave of an ocean, up and down and unstable.

We are all capable of getting stuck in the waves of our small mind, but our minds can also be vast as the ocean, and we can return to the vastness of big mind as many times and as often as needed. We cannot keep the mind constantly quiet, but we can always return to silence. Exercising our capacity to return to our quiet mind is a reminder that waves of emotion normally recede after they rise, and they recede with less effort, not more. Even large waves subside.

The mind can be calm and quiet, like the Monterey Bay was that night, reflecting a steady light, and illuminating something beautiful in one precious moment. With a routine practice of mindfulness, you can cultivate a mind like the ocean.