Ghost of the Future

Dear DR

I am your future. I am the ideals you work towards and i live in those dreams you lust after. You spend so long of your life imagining what it will be like when you get to “this point” or that “point” for you are convinced the “rough patch” you often find yourself in will be worth it in the end for in the long term,  for it should bring the success and what you hope will be some form of happiness.

A lot of your time is dedicated me, the future you hold in such high regard. I think you use it, this grand image you have of the future, as a form of motivation. You and the past will always have a tumultuous relationship and it seems that belief in the future and the images of what you hope your life will turn into is what keeps you going. But at what cost to the present moment?

You ignore the past, for you cannot find a balance in how to react to what has happened. The emotional power of the past can be so destructive, for the fact that when bad things have happened, the darkness that comes after can feel so suffocating. So you run towards me as best as you can, hoping that however bad things are or have been, the future will be better and those dreams will be reality. Yet, i pose to you a question. How are you supposed to build and develop your future life, be it with certain people or through certain ways of living, if you cannot bring yourself to see the past? Your are not living for the future, you are hiding in the ideas of it.

Think further afield than the obvious aspects of the future. When low you find yourself thinking about instant gratification, living not for the brilliance of the present moment or the potential that the future could hold, but more about what you want to buy and the places of lavish luxury you hope to one day stop at. This can feel like the easy version of the future, for these places and ideas really don’t mean anything, only that instant flow of pleasure “i have this car” which soon fades when you realize the world has moved no further forward, and your life at that particular moment is no different except for what your driving around in.

We have a thing in modern society about “planning ahead for the future.” We feel like we need to plan through every little detail over what you want life to be like, to make sure all the cogs are spinning at the right speed and in the right order for things to go exactly as you want them to. However, as much as we look at the variables throughout any situation, you cannot predict everything, so you will always be going into a situation with some level of unknown. This is what makes life the uniquely terrifying, wonderfully adrenaline pumping moments in life, for the not knowing gives us that rare “surprise” be it good , or bad. Its the fact we felt something so powerful like this that matters.

Your ideas and feelings about the future does more than motivate you, it gives you hope and purpose. We need a reason to carry on, especially in the face of failure and loss, a deflating sense of “wondering why to even try.” Yet you ignore the past for the way it makes you feel, where is the drive for the future? Where is the “going with your gut” if you can’t, or won’t draw on what made you feel so…lost?

I wonder what you are missing out on when detailing the plans to make the “perfect future” for there is no real such thing in the fact that the future is forever changing. This constant need for predictability makes life very limited and  it means for a loss of surprise. You have become convinced that missing something or glossing over a certain detail can have a majorly detrimental effect on your life in the future, but not seeing it coming and being presented with the majesty of surprise could have a remarkable effect on how we feel in the present moment and through this how our lives in the future will be affected. The key seems to be you seeing how to connect the dots.

The past, the present and the future are not singular items. They all seem to be connected, all we have to do is choose to be able to see the lines, and connect the dots between who we were, who we are in the past and who we want to be in the future. This is you simply giving yourself the chance to be you. Not a society based worn down version who lives to the instant gratification we often fall for. The past, present and future are all fundamental parts of who we are, if you can look past the fears of what happened or what might be coming. If not for the fact, there’s no way of knowing for definite anything will happen.

You, being you, because you choose to be, away from the fear, the hope, the gratification. Simply because you choose to be, in this moment, your unique, wonderfully minded self.

Merry Christmas people. I hope you are all well, and if into the whole Christmas thing or not, chilled and resting.

Yours, with love as always, DR,

Random motivational picture