In the moment

When I first travelled to China, I was with a group of 24 english tai chi practitioners who were eager to learn from Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei. 

I recently met up with one of the people who I travelled with. As we shared our memories of the trip - immediately, he brought out a thick photo library and thumbed through the pages eagerly. He had obviously taken a lot of pictures, and we enthusiastically went through the pictures of the Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Great Wall.... all the sights.

But when I asked him about what he learned in training, his conversation slowed. I asked him how he felt about some of the things that were said, he could not remember. It reminded me of the Chinese proverb:

"You can't stand in the same river twice."

The moments of our lives are truly precious. Once they are gone, we can never get them back. Yet - as with my friend - if we try too hard to record these moments, we will corrupt our experience of them.

So with the oncoming festive season, think about that camera in your hand. While you hold that, you're not hugging your family and friends.