Still living too much in the future

[jducoeur]

One of the underlying principles that I am trying to adopt is to live in the moment -- not so much living strictly *for* the moment, with the short-termism that implies, as trying to focus on the here and now instead of the past or possible future. (I can get into the reasoning why if folks would like, but that's a much longer essay.) I'm getting there, but not there yet. I'm largely learning to not mope about things that are already done -- not beat myelf up pointlessly. But I've got further to go on the future.

This weekend had a couple of disappointments to it. Nothing earth-shattering, but I'd managed to build up some unreasonable hopes for how things would go -- and when reality didn't match those expectations, that disappointment was inevitable. And I have to face the fact that the downer was more because of the expectations than the way things actually went: looking back on it honestly, it was a good weekend aside from not being what I had wanted.

None of which means that I can simply wave a magic wand and change: over-thinking how things *might* go is a very deep-seated habit. But the nearest I get to an honest spiritual belief is that the universe hands us lessons to learn from, and I think this one gives me some clear things to work on...

Comments

[serakit.livejournal.com]

The extent to which you and I are living in the same areas of stuff to work on is truly astonishing at times. Not that we haven't talked about this one before. But still...

[jducoeur]

Well, these things are more universal than you think. I mean, this business of living in the moment, as opposed to the past or future, is at the heart of a lot of Buddhist thought. That implies that not only is the problem common, but that it was common 2500 years ago. It's not an artifact of our hyperactive age; it's a common problem of the human psyche...