The man doing stand up and what he taught me about the present

Last night I went to a local comedy club for an open mic night where comedians performed their best five minutes. I did not expect to leave thinking as much as I did.

The performers were genuinely good. Confident, funny, brave in a way that I admire deeply because I could not do what they did. Standing up in front of a room full of strangers and making them laugh takes a kind of courage that I have a lot of respect for.

But the one who stuck with me was an older man, probably in his seventies. I don't know his story or how he got into stand up comedy. What I do know is that he was completely in his element. Funny, relaxed, fully present. He was having the time of his life up there.

I found myself wondering about him. What his path looked like. Whether he had always been like that or whether he grew into that version of himself over time. And somewhere in that wondering I started thinking about myself, about the future, about whether I am making the right choices and moving in the right direction.

I have been listening to The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle lately and one of the ideas that has stayed with me is that time is largely an illusion. There is no past or future, there is only now. The present moment is the only place where life actually happens.

Watching that man on stage was a perfect example of that. His present looked like joy. Like confidence. Like someone who had stopped worrying about what comes next and decided to just show up fully for whatever this is.

I want to be more like that. I don't always get it right and some days the noise of expectations and the pressure of figuring it all out gets loud. But I am working on it. Trying to appreciate what is right in front of me instead of worrying about what hasn't happened yet.

That man probably had no idea he was teaching anyone anything last night. But he was.