The Problem with the Future
Dear Friends,
There is a problem with the future.
The main problem is that the future is not here.
In fact, it never actually arrives.
Where does it go?
It becomes the present.
When we are young … the future tends to be our focus: “I may not be much now, but once I get my degree or start my company, then I will be,” we tend to think.
We often orient toward future moments that we usually believe will be better than our current one, and where we will may have more influence and agency.
Then as we get older … (And there is less future left for us to imagine) the past becomes much more interesting.
We tend to say things like, “In my 20’s, it was so amazing.” Or “I was such a great basketball player in high school.” We find solace in the past.
You can notice this in the topics that most older people talk about. The past tends to rule many conversations.
Of course in both these situations, we miss something pretty important: the present moment.
NOTICE
Notice today how much information you consume that guides you back to the present moment, to the feeling of being alive right now … and how much information you take in that reinforces that life is to be lived in some future moment.
You may notice that very little guides you to be here now.
The fuel of modern life is in “the next thing.” Why are we moving so quickly into the future? It is hard to say.
Whole industries are based on convincing us that this moment is unworthy of our attention and that some future moment is the place to be…. once we buy, consume, get, visit, etc.
Of course, plans need to be made and future moments explored, but let's not let our ideas about the future make us completely miss the present … the only moment we have.
As the saying goes, “If we are not here now, what makes us think we will be there then?”
THE PRESENT WINS
When you started reading this article, you may have wondered what it would be like when you finished it … and yet again, the future has become the present!
We are here now.
The present moment wins again!
Thank you for reading and joining this effort to live with deeper mindfulness, wisdom and compassion in the world. We need all of us.
Please read about Wisdom 2.0 “future” events below :-)
Hope to see you on zoom this Friday with Dr. David Sinclair.
Blessings,
SOREN
Founder, Wisdom 2.0
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Thank you for the reminder to come back to the present moment. And I resonate with what you are saying - I definitely spent more time dreaming about the future when I was younger and I'm literally thinking about the past everyday as I write my memoir. I appreciate the simple insight and reminder. :)