The only woman who ever broke my heart lived completely in the moment. Or at least that’s how it seemed. She lived each day one second at a time, she never turned down a party, she took risks, and she never let an old plan get in the way of life’s spontaneous adventures. I thought mindfulness and being present were ideals, and she seemed like a master of both…except she wasn’t.

The thing is, escapism can look a lot like living in the present, and I think it’s useful to separate the two. This woman, we’ll call her Nicole, had a very troubled past. There were a lot of scars she still carried with her, and they created pain that I think she’s still running from. When your self-image or broken expectations of life are too painful or scary, sometimes that makes you want to escape. You can choose alcohol, drugs, adrenaline, toxic friendships, or any number of exciting distractions. Many exciting-looking lives are people jumping between shiny objects to escape from painful feelings. I know for Nicole it was.

The hard part is that escaping from problems very rarely solves them. It makes you hurt people close to you, it makes you wear yourself out trying to get away, and it also makes the pain you’re running from worse. It isn’t healing. It’s not being present. The pain is what’s actually present. The torn emotions and unresolved regret and skewed values are what is present. That’s the truth that Nicole was running from. If she had been present she would have sat with those feelings and worked through them and started to heal and chosen a healthy future instead of a past swept under the rug.

Living in the moment is about acknowledging everything in each moment. The sadness of missing someone long gone as well as the beauty of a sunset. The anxiety of a scary interview as well as the warm cup of coffee in your hands. The tightening of anger in your muscles in traffic as well as the softening of those same muscles when you hold a pet you love dearly. All of these things are you. Being present means feeling everything that you are and accepting those feelings. It means actually living your life, not ignoring all the parts that make you uncomfortable.

Maybe you see yourself in Nicole and you’re tired of running from the same pain. Maybe someone in your life acts like Nicole and it’s time to distance yourself so you’re not a casualty of them learning life’s lessons the hard way. I don’t know who you are. I just know there’s a difference between escapism and living in the moment, and I wish fewer people paid the price of confusing them.