This reminds me of this quote:

If you are depressed, you are living in the Past. If you are anxious, living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the moment. - Lao Tzu

But in a way more in depth way. I like it. One of my resolutions was to

4. Focus on the task at hand and try to do it in the best way I can manage, rather than multitasking on 19 different things or people at the same time. I've cut out the checking my phone while having "conversations" with boring people but that could still use some work.

When I was thinking about my resolutions I wasn't specifically choosing this to live less anxiously / more in the moment but it ends up being very similar. I want to fully absorb what I am doing rather than racing through tasks to complete them. Some days, at 6pm, I look at the clock and ask where the day went. I did so much and got so much done but I didn't really get anything for doing it. I find recently that I do tasks to do them but don't take anything larger from it, I guess. I don't quite know how to explain it.

This has made me think about things in a different way and I enjoy that.

Indeed, my own New Year’s resolution has been to stop measuring my days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. But what, exactly, makes that possible?

I think the answer is to be "intent." If you are driving, be in the moment and hear your surroundings, feel the steering wheel in your hands. While writing this I paused to be aware of my surroundings and for a brief moment, I was "present." I heard the soft hiss of the heat ducts, I looked up and saw the light variation from the fixture above and heard my hair crunch against the head rest of my office chair. Breathe. Breathing is good.

It's possible for me to say to myself, "be present," then attempt to turn off my internal dialog and just exist, "watching the thinker" as they say. But this is VERY difficult for me to do for any sustained amount of time. Within mere moments my internal dialog resumes. It's insane. But I need to practice.

As for Alan Watts, have a listen to him discussing nothingness. Is that not wonderful? What a voice and what a message.

Back to the Brain Pickings post:

The “primary consciousness,” the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g., “everyone will die”) that the future assumes a high degree of reality — so high that the present loses its value.

The "ingenious brain" is a tool. Like all tools it has a time and place to be used. Granted this tool is used many times throughout our days, but it doesn't always need to be turned on. If you are like me, you probably have a constant narrative going in your mind. Thinking about a task at hand, a song or melody or a scene you've constructed of what a future event might look like? The movie of the mind is constantly projecting. Why? Turn it off now and then and use it when you need it. The mind is your tool, you are not the minds tool. Sometimes it's good to show it who is boss!...turn it off, float down stream :).