A nascent meditation program at the office has me listening to guided exercises that instruct us to “breathe in, breathe out” and to exist in the present, because that’s all we have.

The irony of doing this in the workplace does not escape me — future-oriented as it is and has to be — but my neck and shoulders constantly remind me that I need to chill out, so I close my eyes and try to float in the moment.

I concentrate on the breath, on the inflow and outflow, the filling up and the releasing. It’s true, the present moment is really all we have. There is a seat on Metro, there is a journal I can write in. And, later, there is a walk that will take me where I need to go.

Breathe in, breathe out.