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Image courtesy of the author.

In my first year of A-Levels—the American equivalent of eleventh grade—an acquaintance of mine nonchalantly made an astute observation about me. I tended to tilt forward while standing and while walking. At the time, I was so deeply unconscious of my footing that this throwaway comment did little to persuade me. I had no idea what he was talking about.  

In August of this year, I started dabbling in yoga using online practice videos, mostly from the YouTube channel “Yoga with Adriene”—a popular channel that popped up almost immediately through cursory YouTube searches. When I first encountered a practice centered on tadasana—mountain pose—Adriene’s bubbly voice caressed my ears, instructing me to shift my weight forward, right to the precipice of my toes, and then with a pendulum-like swing, back toward my heels. I spent some time swaying to-and-fro, feeling the sensation translating from end-to-end, my mind entirely concentrated on my soles. After this, I was instructed to stand straight, my weight pressing down evenly through all four corners of my  feet.  

It was then that I realized that for a vast proportion of my life, I’d been standing wrong.  

Those nonchalant words from my friend drifted to the forefront of my mind like a long-forgotten dream. For almost two decades, I’d been standing with my weight pressed forward. I found that all parts of my body, from my feet to my head, leaned forward, paralyzed in the desperate frenzy of rushing from point A to point B, scavenging lost seconds, my mind almost willing the entire substance of my being to move past the wretched slowness of time.  

I was rushing through life. I lived in the future, but a future that never came. I found myself fantasizing about going to college abroad, not with the robust optimism of relishing the opportunities I’d find there, but framing it as an escape, a long-awaited vacation to the Bahamas that was just at the edge of my fingertips. Life was always waiting for me at the next elusive second.

These thoughts had just started to foment in my mind when, in September, I found myself rifling through the “Ancient Wisdom Project,” a blog discussing major religions and life philosophies. The author, Dale, experimented with each faith for 30 days, documenting both his experiences as well as his study with ardor, dedication, and self-deprecating authenticity. One philosophy he dabbled with was Stoicism—a Hellenistic tradition grounded in the principles of wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. On his third day of practicing Stoic values, Dale reflected on his escapist fantasies about Egypt, San Diego, and other exotic unlived-in Utopias that were not only alluring but were packaged in a consumerist industry as the Edens of now, the gardens of happiness.  

To all of his wishful thinking, he followed up with an apt quote from Lucius Annaeus Seneca:  

Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Vergil remarks, 

Lands and cities are left astern,  

your faults will follow you whithersoever you travel.  

and again with:  

Do you wonder that it is of no use to run away from them? That from which you are running, is within you. 

Dale had his own reasons for wanting to run away. But for me, the impulse emanated from a deep-seated dissatisfaction with my life, one that prompted me to run confusedly in a haze of absentmindedness, seeking purpose in experience after experience, but never truly finding it. I was forced to confront this reality by the emphatic truth of Seneca’s words. A core Stoic principle came to my aid. As Dale puts it, 

There are things outside of your control, and there are things that are within your control.  

My happiness, I realized, was certainly within my control.  

As I fully grasped the implications of that realization, I started to slow down. My  weight shifted backward, evenly distributing itself through the anchoring soles of my feet. My stomach, almost of its own accord, tucked itself in, and my neck, shoulders, and head pulled themselves back. I started basking in the glorious, absorbing reality of the present moment, grateful for the shades of green crisscrossing my yoga mat, grateful for the nourishment in my apple-banana smoothie, grateful for all the people in my life who invested an excessive amount of time and emotional energy into my self-improvement because they saw the untapped potential stirring within me. I’m no longer rushing through life; I’m now savoring every moment.  

And I finally know how to stand properly.