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Today's
Meditation:
I used to
worry a lot about the future because I was scared it would
keep on being like the past and present. When things
weren't going well and I was dealing with depression, for
example, I used to be afraid that the depression would
last forever and that my future would always be just as
bad as the present. Nowadays, though, I try to stay
more focused on the present moment. I prepare for
the future and I consider it often, but I don't think
about it too much because I'd rather stay involved in
what's going on in the here and now.
Much
of the worry that we go through has to do with the future,
and the more we immerse ourselves in the idea of what may
happen tonight or tomorrow or the next day, the less we're
able to enjoy and make the most of the present. If
my mind is in the future, then I'm going to miss a lot of
what I'm doing right now. It's hard to stay focused
on a conversation with a friend right now when I'm
thinking about something that may or may not happen hours
or days from now.
The
irony is that when we spend our time focused on the
future, we're very often keeping ourselves from preparing
well for it. If I'm thinking only about next week,
then it's hard for me to make sure that I've done all I
can to make sure that things go well next week. The
truth is, though, that the future exists only in our
minds-- by the time it gets here, it's called the present,
and wise people consistently tell us that we're going to
do ourselves the most good by dealing well with the
present and not filling our minds with the maybe's of the
days to come.
We
can make educated guesses, but we really can't tell what
the future is going to bring us. Some people,
though, are trapped by the future, thinking mostly about
next week or next year or their upcoming vacations while
neglecting the here and now. And by neglecting what
we're doing now, we can definitely be sabotaging the
chances we have of creating the bright future that we hope
to have.
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