Let Go Of The Future
Let Go Of The Future
Now if you’ve read any number of my blogs you know I’m not a hedonist so you know this is not a call to be totally self interested in the moment without any care for consequences.
The future maters, but it is like sand in the palm. The tighter you grip it, the faster it slips away.
I am reminded of an amusing phrase often used by my friends and I. “I’m already tired tomorrow.”
I’m sure many of you can relate to that feeling, I certainly can. However I had cause to analyze this sentiment in the day job and found myself needing to adopt a very Zen/Stoic mentality to alleviate my stress.
The philosophy of Stoicism includes the idea of not clinging too tightly to what is beyond your control.
Zen philosophy includes the idea of emptying ones self so as not to consider any action or moment outside the one you are in so as not to fill your mind with turmoil.
At least that’s what my three dollar philosophy book says.
However the idea I’m driving at, the position I found myself in was a mounting anxiety created by my inability to achieve something that was factually impossible for me to achieve. And then I thought. “If I could never do it, why am I beating myself up about it?”
We often fill our futures with regrets of the past. If I hadn’t done X then I wouldn’t be in Y situation. And earning from your past is both necessary and intelligent. However selling your future to your past, to those past recriminations robs you of the present and only increases the burden you will bare.
If you actually DO know what you did wrong, then you know what to do right and harming yourself for the mistake will not help. If something IS out of your control then getting anxious of it will not bring it into your control. If you could never achieve the goal you seek then it serves no purpose to punish yourself for failing.
Let Go Of The Future.
More accurately, let go of the pain you place in the future for yourself. Accept where you are. Understand what you can do, now, and choose the course of action that will bring you closer to the future without the pain you’ve put in your own way.
Trust me, Life will give you enough difficulty without you helping her by beating yourself up for things you fear will happen.
The past is supposed to be a place of learning. The present is supposed to be a place of action. The future is supposed to be a place of possibilities. Don’t make the past a place of regret, the present a place of anxiety and the future a place of pain. There are miracles waiting to be born of your own action. Don’t use tomorrow to hobble today.
I hope today’s missive was as helpful to read as it was for me to write.
Thank you, and God bless;
~S. Wallace