How Much Of Life Are You Actually Living?

I'm not sure I agree.

Consider a metaphor.

Transfer your weight onto one foot while leaning forward, in order that your center of gravity is temporarily over-extended, while simultaneously putting your free foot out to 'catch' yourself from falling. Now rinse and repeat. Thus: walking.

If you want to walk faster, lean further forward. It's like watching a Segway, but with articulation.

All willful locomotion -- whether bipedal or otherwise -- depends on initiating a controlled disequilibrium which ultimately results in a prefered new equlibrium.

So it is with looking forward to things in life. Planning for the future. Saving for a rainy day. Working hard today for a better tomorrow.

The ability to conceptualize the _consequences_ of a temporarily destabilizing disequilibrium is what makes man master of the world.

So 'living in the future', far from being a modern malaise, is precisely what enables progress, advancement and civilisation. That doesn't mean that the disequilibrium is always comfortable while it's happening. Indeed, our atavistic selves usually counsel rest in the absence of an urgent limbic call to action -- when we're not starving or physically threatened, say.

But meanwhile, the higher brain recognises that the competion for scarce resources in a hostile world is relentless. And that means running to keep up -- however uncomfortable that might sometimes feel.

Indeed, deferred gratification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_gratification) is analysed as an indicator for intelligence and emotional maturity.

And as for the dishes, whatever he may claim, Thich Nhat Hanh's superordinate goal when he washes the dishes is to have clean dishes. If he can enter a state of flow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)) while doing so -- whether because he has phenomenal mental self-control, or an unusually quiet life -- then so be it. But most people can't, and would find their "cognitive surplus" (the brain parts left unused while dishes are being done) better invested in preparatory mental activity, or contructively anticipating the future.

And if he got the dishes done quickly rather than dawdling and daydreaming, he'd be back at the table to enjoy more time with his dinner guests, in whose gratitude he will find favour, and through whose company he will obtain the familiar state of flow which most humans achieve through routine social interaction.

"doing the dishes to do the dishes" sounds all well and good, but it's predicated on the idea that all activities are equally worth doing, because they're all living. Which is ridiculous. Consider "sitting there while the monk does the dishes to sit there while the monk does the dishes", or "be horribly tortured to be horribly tortured".

Not all activities are of equal value, and it's natural to want to maximize the high payoffs (time with family, solving good problems, sex, etc) and minimize the low (dishes).

It doesn't necessarily take any longer to live in the moment. It's a matter of where your mind is focused. In fact, if you are focused on what you are doing, you will likely be more efficient and make fewer mistakes. If the task ends up taking longer, it would only be because you did a better job. That is, you might be able to rush through washing the dishes with your mind on the future, but your dishes would still be dirty.

You are under estimating the value of high speed internet and time-zone. Travel "vertically" across the map and travel to places with something better than 5mbps and you should be fine.