The ’Future’ Myth

“I used to get excited about the future but it never came.”

I can never live in the future. Or the past. Neither can you.

Of course, you and I can think about the past. Obsess about it, even. We can regret it. Be angry about it. But we can never be in the past. Neither can we undo the past. When next Thursday (what we call our future) rolls around, it won’t be our future; it will be our present. It will be our ‘right now’. Last Wednesday (what we call our past), when you and I ate breakfast, we were doing something in the present.

As we always are.

Where we Live: The Present

I might confuse you when I tell you that you’ve never done anything in the past. And you’ll never do anything in the future. It’s literally impossible because doing always happens in the now. In fact, our lives are a never-ending series of ‘now’ moments. We can’t react in the past or future. We can’t have a conversation in the past or future. We can’t make a decision in the past or future.

When you make that life-changing decision next week, you will be making it in the present. In fact, when next week arrives, it won’t be your future at all; it will be your new instalment of ‘now’. In reality, the past and future don’t exist at all (exist being a present-tense verb). Weird, I know. If something can only exist in the present, then that fact alone tells us that both the past and future are nothing more than mental constructs. Our memories (of what we refer to as the past) are little more than a cerebral showreel of events that all happened in the present at various stages of our journey.

Obsessed with Something That Doesn’t Exist

Which makes our fascination with, and obsession about, the past and future a very interesting topic to consider. In terms of our mental health, our overall happiness, our productivity and our decision-making, the smart question here is, why do we invest so much mental, emotional and physical energy into things over which we have no control? And, at the same time, why have we worked so hard to master the skill of avoidance in the now?

Have you noticed how competent we’ve become at avoiding and deflecting? Avoiding behaviours we should change in the now. Avoiding issues we should address in the now. Avoiding decisions we should make in the now. Avoiding certain responsibilities in the now. Avoiding conversations we should have in the now. Yep, they’re all things we say we’re going to do one day; some time in the future.

A future that we will never inhabit.

Curious Creatures

We’re curious creatures us human beings. Unlike all other species, we agonise and self-destruct over things we can’t change (what happened five years ago, for example) while wasting our opportunities, resources and potential to do better and create better in this moment. You and I will never have this day again.

What will you do with yours?