The "I'd Rather Be..." Bumper Sticker

A few weeks ago I was driving on the highway and the car in front of me had a red bumper sticker that caught my eye. It said: “I’d rather be at a Neil Diamond Concert.” I thought it was a pretty funny thing to put on your car.

We’ve all seen those “I’d rather be” bumper stickers. If I were going to put one on my Honda, it would probably say: “I’d rather be fly fishing.” This feeling of “I’d rather be” is common. Whether at work, or fighting traffic, we all daydream of being somewhere else, like the beach or the trout stream. However, Judaism teaches the value of being present, focusing on where we are right now.

In Hebrew, the word for being present is heenaynee, which means, “Here I am.” When God first spoke to Abraham and Moses, they replied: “heenaynee,” Here I am. They were ready to listen to God and had nothing else on their minds.

Being present in the moment is what allowed Moses to find God in the first place. Moses was shepherding his flock on the mountain when he saw a bush burning without being consumed. How can you tell if a bush burns without being destroyed? Only if you spend enough time looking at it. So Moses was living in the present.

Time spent in an airplane is also an opportunity to be present. It is easy to think of the hours we spend in a plane as dead time, wasted time. After all, we are just trying to get somewhere else. However, when I try to be present on the plane often something nice happens. I hear a young girl telling her mother how excited she is for the upcoming trip. At night I see a moonless sky, and the dark ocean in all directions, and I feel the peace of the sleeping earth. Being present allows us to appreciate the small miracles of life.

Living in the present allows us to connect to those we care about. In our multi-tasking, cell-phone, internet world, sometimes it is hard to be with our family and friends even if they are sitting right next to us! I have friends who go out to dinner, but spend half the time on their cell phones, sending e-mail or checking the score of the game. We all know the cell phone called a Blackberry. Some people call it a “crack-berry,” because it can become addictive, and can pull us away from the present and into our own little worlds.

When the Israelites were leaving Egypt, there were two Jews who always looked down at their shoes as they walked. At first the ground was sandy and dry and they complained about the dust in their shoes. Then the ground became muddy and it was hard to walk and they complained about that. After a little while, the ground became dry and sandy again.

Since they were looking at their shoes, these two Israelites missed the splitting of the Red Sea! The ground was muddy because they were walking at the bottom of the ocean, with walls of water on both sides. Surely, miracles do not happen everyday. But if we spend all of our time complaining and looking down at our shoes, we may miss something amazing.

One last story about being present comes from the movie Groundhog Day. In the film, Bill Murray is forced to relive the same day, over and over again, at least a dozen times. Murray lives in a prison of present-ness. At first, he enjoys not having any tomorrow, eating whatever he wants and getting into trouble. Then he becomes desperate. Finally, Bill Murray learns the lesson of being present. He uses the day to help others. He connects with a woman and falls in love. Having learned the lesson of living in the present, then Murray wakes up and begins his life anew.

We do not have to be stuck in the same day in order to learn the lesson of being present. We need only to stop spending so much time being somewhere else. Then we may discover the small miracles all around us, and find ways to connect to those we love. Maybe I will get one of those bumper stickers. Mine will not say: “I’d rather be on the beach.” Instead, it would read: “I’d rather be right where I am.”