The Importance of Being Present

January 2024

On December 20, the New York Times printed an interview with cellist (and Winsor past parent) Yo-Yo Ma, which ends with this comment:

 “For me as a musician, I try to be aware of where I am. As a performer, my job is to make the listener the most important person in the room. The only way to avoid burnout is to care about where you are. My good friend [pianist Emmanuel] Ax would always say to me that it doesn’t matter what you did yesterday; if you’re here today, that’s what counts. Being present. Caring… That is what I’m thinking about with every single interaction. Whether it’s a kid, someone on the street, in a concert hall or with you, David [the interviewer]. It’s the same thing: How to be present. Because if you’re not?” 

I am a big fan of resolutions around the new year, and in particular resolutions that are additive rather than prescriptive. So, rather than “I will work out five times a week,” which is easily broken and feels like a burden, I lean toward “I will take more walks with my children” or “I will make more time to greet students as they arrive at school.” The great advantage of such resolutions is that you build on them, feeling like you are taking something good and making it better. This school year, in particular, I have asked the faculty and staff, and the students, to pay attention to what is good, what is working, and to use that to make the school, and their world, a better place. We often look for what is broken or wrong—and we do need to know what isn’t working—but there are great benefits to seeing the good and amplifying it.  

Many faculty and staff at Winsor have been reading the book, Never Enough, by Jennifer Breheny Wallace, which has a very helpful diagnosis of our culture of achievement and anxiety, identifying ways that this culture has engulfed us all, and why it’s so complicated to step out of it. Wallace’s structure is to use examples to support a larger point, so there are many stories throughout the book that you might identify with. And she also offers some solutions, many of which echo Ma’s exhortation about “Being present. Caring.” There is nothing more important than the people we are with at the moment.The best way to identify the good and build on it is to see the person in front of us right now, connect with them fully, and help them see the good in themselves. If we think we are only as good as our latest accomplishment, and always have to be striving for the next one, we are on a very challenging path. But if we can see our work and ourselves in the context of a community that needs us, a community we want to serve and support, then it’s easier to be present and connected. 

The Winsor community is strong, complex, joyful, and loving. My resolution for this year is to build on all that strength and to help those around me build on it, too. As Ma says, “Being present. Caring… That is what I’m thinking about with every single interaction. Whether it’s a kid, someone on the street, in a concert hall or with you.” Happy new year.