Surely thinking ahead or delighting in the past are just as valuable, if not more so, says Tom Hodgkinson. Plus your thoughts

It’s a staple of self-help: “Live in the moment”. I wonder how many times this fatuous bit of advice has been dished out over the years.

For example, the maddening meditation app Calm, under a picture of a fully-dressed woman walking into the sea on an empty beach, offers this gem on its blog: “Living in the moment means fully engaging with the present”. You don’t say! Advice includes the usual roster: spend time in nature, keep a journal, go for a walk, stare at a pile of pebbles and so on.

The Calm app has made millions out of peddling such banalities.

But if we all truly did live in the moment we’d surely drive each other completely nuts. Take my 20 year old son. He lives in the moment. He can’t plan ahead more than an hour or two. He goes with the flow. This means that at lunchtime he cannot tell me whether he’s going to be in for dinner. This makes cooking and shopping extremely tricky.

People who live in the moment also tend to be late for appointments and late to pay their bills. They forget passports, lose keys, crash cars and do other anti-social things.

Then there’s the other son. He’ll tell me that he’s in for supper, so I’ll lay the table for him and buy and cook the right amount of food. Then at 8pm he’ll text and say: “Sorry I can’t make it, I just bumped into a friend.”

That’s because he is living in the now. He has fully engaged with the present. He is taking the advice: “stop regretting the past and worrying about the future. Be mindful of the moment.” But really, isn’t that actually just selfish, thoughtless behaviour? Your moment is my pain in the arse.

Life is all about planning and thinking ahead: arranging meetings, parties, events, projects. If I lived in the moment then the Idler magazine would not get published seven times a year. I would live in the pub, and then become bankrupt and alcoholic.

Similarly, it’s perfectly natural and even enjoyable to live in the past: an example might be taking a pleasant meander down memory lane. There may be some painful memories, for sure. But rather than avoiding the past we can learn from it, learn from our mistakes.

Yes, I get it. You’re not supposed to live in the moment 24/7. Just every now and then. Ideally, you schedule some “living-in-the-now” time, through a meditation session each day, or prayer. And actually, I sometimes find that I “live in the moment” while working. It’s nice to be immersed in a creative project. And it’s similar with sport: playing tennis, I find that I concentrate on the game and that other concerns vanish entirely from my mind.

But these “living in the moment” moments happen perfectly naturally in everyday life.

Speaking personally, I achieve this state with the help of Tribute ale almost every evening. So the advice to “live in the moment” is fairly redundant for most people.

Live in the moment? Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Am I right? Please refute me by email.

PS Book now for our fantastic new season of “A Drink with the Idler”. Guests include Irvine Welsh, Victoria Bateman, Tim Richardson, Amy Matthews, James Parker, John Mullan and Catherine Clarke. Read more here.

Subscribers may comment. Please add your idle thoughts using the box below.

SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Please add your thoughts in the box below.

Sir: It is rare that I ever take the trouble to actually write and tell anyone I loved their article, radio piece, podcast etc – I tend to think it and do nothing. But since I am in the moment I feel I should tell you how much I enjoyed your ‘Do you really want to live in the moment?’ letter. I found it very reassuring as it beautifully explained why this living in the moment directive is drivel. Thank you for making me laugh… Now I must actually go and do some work.
Lauren Child

Sir: “Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.” Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
John Mullan

Sir: I enjoy your emails – they are funny! And well observed. You want my point of view? Here it is:
– I don’t know the app Calm
– I have done Zen and all other sorts of meditation, occupation with inner and outer things…
– and I have come to the conclusion that living in the “now” doesn’t mean to let yourself go. Living in the “now” means: be here, be with you, be aware of what is happening in this very moment. If it is brushing teeth then be aware that you are brushing teeth. If it is sitting in the pub then it is sitting in the pub. If it is go home and have dinner with Dad then go home and have Dinner with Dad. Be aware of what his happening. Keep your thoughts and your brain in order. Don’t let your brain run around in circles, have it here with you. I am pretty sure that you know that. But left it out on purpose because it makes your email funnier! Which is legitimate! Yours sincerely,
Michi Roselieb

Sir: Bravo. I love this! Have exactly the same problem with my infuriating sons. (My daughter is far too conscientious and organised and polite not to be at supper when she says.)
Annabel

Sir: Ref “living in the moment”. You seem to have missed the point, which is sad, because it is humanity’s habit of living in its egoic state that is rapidly destroying the Earth. Perhaps if you read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, you might become enlightened? And maybe you’ll get your two lads to try it too? Good luck – and namasté
Andrew Berry

Sir: Can’t reproach you, only offer a recommendation: meditation. Speaking as a chronic god botherer, I meditate most days. Vipassana, samatha; both offer unparalleled access to the “live in the now” mind. Specifically “be here now” is a formal part of the technique. Cheers and much idling to you.
Geoff Walker

Sir: I am arrived in London, en route to Italy and Villa Pia, and could not have managed it without some planning, so you are correct. The Calm app is indeed a contrary, because it has made me feel vexed before now with its presumptions. Yet, on pause, it is perhaps a fitting contrary, for in vexing me it keeps me in the moment, which proves of service in outpacing my jetlag. Life is a funny ol’ game.
Juana Gibson

Sir: The original purpose of meditation was to reveal one’s true nature – the self uncontaminated by our conditioning, beliefs, delusions etc. In other words, liberation from the causes of suffering. This can only take place in the present as this is all that exists. Memories are a story in our mind as are our imaginings of the future. Side effects of dedicated quality meditation practice will be the stuff that the app you mentioned markets (so we can be ‘happier’ more efficient contestants in the Ponzi scheme called life on planet Earth). ‘Live in the moment’ in the context of your letter seems to refer to something quite different – a freewheeling devil may care attitude, without responsibilities. Two-penneth served. Best wishes,
Jake Smith

Sir: When were you ever not living in the moment? I enjoyed your piece — the humour hit home, and I’ll admit apps like Calm don’t help by reducing a profound truth to lifestyle banality. What you describe — flaky dinner plans, lost keys, late bills — is indeed a kind of “living in the moment,” but it’s the indulgent version. It mistakes short-term whim for presence, and as you say, it usually ends up being selfish and inconsiderate. But living in the present is actually the opposite. It isn’t about shrugging off responsibility or chasing pleasure first. It’s a deep spiritual truth that changes the way you perceive the world – almost turning it on its head. When you begin to experience durational time instead of being trapped in linear time, something profound shifts. The Now opens out — no longer a fleeting instant but as a boundless field that holds past and future creatively woven within it. And from that recognition, you discover you are here not just for your own satisfaction, but to be available to life itself — to serve something greater than your own comfort. I’ve tried to put it in words here: https://www.petermitchell.life/boundless-present With best wishes (and currently firmly in the moment)
Peter Mitchell

Sir: I shall take up the gauntlet. Having just returned from a very pleasant session of therapy, in which we spent 5 minutes eating 1 raisin, and a further 10 discussing what it evoked for me, I am coming down from a high precipitated by living in the moment. I have spent hundreds of hours practising meditation (most of which have been dominated by banal thoughts or restless fidgeting as my mind wanders uncontrollably, rather than zen-like peace), but the most enjoyable moments of mindfulness have also been ones of great idling. Siting under a tree and eating a satsuma over the course of 30 minutes while doing absolutely nothing but watching a troop of ants parading up and down the branches; gasping for air after plunging into an icy pond on Hampstead Heath, with no mental room for anxieties or really anything other than how very cold my extremities are; watching a very white sun rise over the dunes of a desert in Morocco at stupid-o-clock in the morning. Needless to say, practising meditation creates more prompts throughout one’s day to be receptive to these sorts of goings-on that happen all the time all around us, whether we are conscious of them or not. And with that receptiveness, I find, comes not only peace, but a high degree of pleasure, offered by the movement of the world completely for free. In this way, even small doses (note: small—I am in no way romanticising hunger or homelessness of chronic illness) of traditionally uncomfortable feelings can also become pleasurable: the chill of a winter wind on the short walk back from the corner shop to buy some milk on Sunday morning, a grumbling of hunger before your first meal of the day, or the twinge of pain from the first sting of a tattooist’s needle.But I don’t think this is what you’re disagreeing with. Immediately after consuming my one solitary raisin this afternoon, I had a realisation: the sort of peace that comes from being so thoroughly in the moment does indeed feel antithetical to the frenetic planning, scheming, organising and general to-ing and fro-ing involved in daily life, whether in the context of pursuing goals and ambitions, or of just, well, getting on with things, really. Will I, for example, really have enough creative motivation to finish composing my album of music if I am content merely to watch ants all day? Will I be able to one day write a novel, if walking in the rain provides sufficient joy for me to feel content? And, more to your grievances, how will I sustain friendships if I pay little heed to tomorrow (especially in London, where everyone’s social schedule is booked up for at least the next 6 weeks)? Nevertheless, I think there are good reasons for making allowances for these kinds of people (of which I am beginning more and more to count myself as one). Having recently received a diagnosis of ADHD, I have been doing a lot of reading into this disability, and you may be surprised to learn, as I was, that one of the more common symptoms is time-blindness. People like me experience time as binary: something is either ‘now’ or ‘not now’. This makes it not only difficult to gauge how long a task might take, or how much time has passed since we began an activity, but also embarrassing when we consistently get it wrong and therefore miss appointments, disappoint others or compromise our own futures. More immediately, it can be immensely frustrating when we get wrenched out of the present after finally having achieved ‘focus’ on a task, to be told that the clock has moved and it is in fact time to do a different task. I think, collectively as a society we understand the value of the ‘flow state’, but I’m not so sure that neurotypical people understand how extra-important this is to someone with ADHD, who spends much of their waking life trying in vain to concentrate on something. It’s not that we don’t want to be on time for things, or don’t think planning is important; it’s that our brains are not wired to experience the world in the way that is required to do these things successfully. Instead, improvising is our compensatory skill, and while it may come as an occasional pain in the arse to those around us, it also provides numerous benefits to ourselves, our loved ones, and arguably, to society. Consider certain art forms: street photography, jazz music, comedy, life drawing, to name a meagre few. If you have every been moved by any of these, then you have benefited from the same talents that are the rewards for not being able to tell others whether we will see them for dinner, or make an appointment on time. You can’t seize the day and bring about those serendipitous moments in quite the same way if you live according to the tenets of routine, regimen, consistency and planning. [Insert pop-culture analogy for balance here, e.g., Jungian shadow self, yin & yang, or a nice set of scales]. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that people with ADHD or any other neurological difference cannot learn to be better at these things. I’m instead making the case for more leniency and tolerance from others, and for considering the ways in which the negative traits of those who are sticklers for good planning might impact the world, too. But just as we ADHD-ers can learn to be better at planning and timeliness, so can others benefit from and learn to be more mindful. My apologies for the rant—in typical living-in-the-moment fashion, I got distracted from my MSc coursework (and from lunch) in replying to this email, and I really must get back to both of those things rather than whittle this self-indulgent opinion piece into a more concise argument. I hope it was at least somewhat amusing, if not educative. Thanks for running such a wonderful magazine.
Kevin Shaabi

Sir: Ha, ha. Up to a point, Lord Copper – good Waugh allusion! But what with the working on holiday and scolding the YOLOs, you’re obviously getting old, Tom! Turn in your Idler badge already.
Andrew Kortz

Sir: Thanks for this latest piece. I agree with you that a lot of so called self-help advice offered out there is banal in the extreme and stupendously unrealistic. But right now I am relaxing in a gite in Burgundy after a wondrous day tour of the local vineyards with a beautiful and knowledgeable French lady as our guide. This was a stretch of 6 hours living in the moment as we strolled along the vine rows and sat in the musty cellars sampling the vintages. If there an elixir of life to rival Tribute ale then it is probably Mersault 2022. But of course I couldn’t have been here if I hadn’t planned it. To enjoy what was to be my future in today’s present I had to live in the present now past in order to enjoy in the future now past what was once anticipated, then experienced and now remembered. The problem with moments is they only last a moment. So living in them is both daft and impossible. Thanks again. Next time I’ll try to be coherent.
Donald Reid

Sir: I think it is time for the offspring to leave the nest. This is nature’s way of telling  you to give that nudge. Stop cooking for the children – it’s far too stressful. Yes – I am learning from David Attenborough!
Dianne Jones

Sir: I agree with you 100 percent.
Susan Johnson

Sir: I haven’t responded to these newsletters before… but I am learning to be an Idler on holiday at the moment and have read and re-read this. Surprisingly I agree entirely with what you have said even after several glasses of Corsican wine. Moreover you folk do tend to talk a lot of sense and I do enjoy trying to be an Idler. Do carry on!
Mike Hancock

Sir: I think what you are describing is the changing nature of parenting. A whole different subject and I am 10 years ahead of you. But the best expression for the different parenting styles came from a friend. I was describing how I am trying to support my eldest son who has severe mental health issues. They said, “Do you know, you are a really good dad because you meet him where he is.” I thought a perfect description then applied it to my other two. My son lives in Brighton and is busy with his own family. Instead of arranging Sunday lunches I find an excuse to be passing through and send him messages on WhatsApp that “Can I pop in on Tuesday around…” I have a 90% hit rate and I am an easy part of their lives. Sometimes I stay for supper, sometimes not. My youngest is running what has turned out to be a successful coffee and ceramics shop. Same arrangement. I “pop in” to the shop for a couple of hours, tell her in advance, and “in the moment” she will find 15 minutes to sit down and talk before rushing off to serve customers. At this stage in life no chance of planned, intense time. And this “meet them where they are” is working perfectly for me…
Vince

Sir: I wonder whether there is a useful distinction to be drawn between ‘having the ability to focus on the present moment’, and ‘surrendering your mind to a continuous flow state in which you can’t tell your dad where you’ll be for dinner’. For me and many of my ‘real-life’ acquaintances, “living in the moment” is the alternative to a debilitating, obsessive preoccupation with our pasts. Arranging parties is a task that requires focus in the present. Compiling an invitation list, or purchasing a large bowl for keys to be thrown into, calls for mental presence every bit as much as missing a low volley and slamming your racquet into a net post. Many of us struggle to plan (in the present) for the future (in the future) because our immediate reality is drowned out by the echoes of childhoods we failed to adequately process at the time. Breathing, stacking pebbles, and whatnot are exercises through which we hope to achieve the appearance of having a functional psyche; they are not an end in themselves. The monetisation of mindfulness annoys me because there’s nothing new to sell. The marketing does seem a bit desperate, but I fear this is because banality is rather the point. To be fair, it’s tricky to find a stock photo that properly conveys ‘man performing everyday task while not thinking about that time he wet himself in primary school and Stephen Jones pointed it out and everyone laughed’. We exist in a perpetual present, whether we like it or not, and any planning for the future must happen in that present. If we agree that ‘living in the moment’ is as inevitable as ‘it’ being precisely what ‘it is’, perhaps mindfulness is overdue a rebrand. Unfortunately, at the present moment, I can only think of ‘Snap Out of it and Pay Attention you Stupid Child’, which is inelegant if illustrative. With immediate, overwhelming, pathological regret and anxiety,
Alex Manya

Our August/September 2025 issue is available in Waitrose, Waterstones, Smiths Travel outlets, select Smiths high street branches and around 100 indie stores. Click here for your nearest stockist.