This is nice
I spent a good few years in my 60s studying and practicing mindfulness, what might be called a Westernized version of Buddhism. I looked into the more religious, more intense versions and decided they weren't for me. But basic meditation and the thinking surrounding it was new to me, and very helpful.
One of the fundamental things I learned was that a modern tendency — plague, really — was wanting to be anywhere else than right here, right now. My mind loved dwelling on the past and worrying about the future, fantasizing about times and places I could be instead of the time and place I was in at the moment.
Problem is, of course, that those imaginings are just that, imaginings. As enjoyable or depressing as they might be, they aren't real. Meanwhile, very little of my attention was left over for the actual real moment I found myself in.
Worse, my mental skills were all devoted to imaginary things, sharpened by dwelling on my fantasies. I wasn't very good at dealing what was right in front of my face, enjoying it or fixing it or even responding to it, because I mostly ignored it to spend more time in my head. Often I mistook the stories about life I spun in my head for life itself.
Mindfulness meditation delivered me from all that, mostly. I learned to distinguish my elsewhere fantasies from the here and now, practiced turning my attention to the present reality, got pretty good at that — and slowly realized that I preferred living in the real world to living in my head. In the real world I'm not as smart, as attractive, as skilled, as admired, as important as I am in my fantasies. But the real world had the distinct advantage of being, well, real.
And it turns out to be a pretty nice place. Not as exquisite as I am capable of imagining. Not as dreadful as I am capable of imagining. Just nice. A pleasant place to spend my time.