What does “being present” mean?

What does it actually mean to be more present? And how is that connected to mindfulness?

Let’s start with a quick example. You know how you can get in your car and drive to, say, your place of work — and you can arrive at your office and suddenly realize that you weren’t even paying the slightest bit of attention on your way? The turns, the sights along the way, the experience of driving — it’s all just a blur. It’s almost more like you were a passenger in the car, rather than the driver.

This is how most of us go through most of our lives: we’re on auto-pilot. We’re going through the motions, but we’re distracted, caught up in our internal ideas and judgements and stories.

Being present is choosing to go off auto-pilot. This is how you might experience it in your everyday life: