Be Here -and- Be There?

Plan ahead! Prepare for the future! Know where you are going!

Be in the moment! Be present! Do not project!

Hmm. Which is it? Live for the moment or do things that will make the future better? Sure, I might get hit by a bus or speeding piece of space junk. Maybe I will choke on a mushroom cap. All are possible. Does that mean no mushrooms on my salad I am eating right now? Isn’t that like mixing the present and the future? Changing the future is risky business!

What I am getting at is this: How do you/I balance the idea of living in the moment, being thrilled with each second of it, appreciating just being alive AND at the same time focus on my education, employment, health?

The latter requires planning and speculating about ‘tomorrow’. I am doing things today that are solely for tomorrow. My current moments are being used up with efforts for better moments to come.

I think this is fine. Necessary even. Got to store those nuts away for the winter, right?

What I need to do is not go to the future with things that are beyond my control. Like, I can still have mushrooms on my salad. I should just chew more. Easy.

But then there are those not so easy things, the murky areas that are grounded and founded in precedent. “Well, this happened last time“. So? It was a different day, situation, person. Similar but still, different. By hanging on to the last time it is almost like I am forcing the same outcome. As if the expectation is enough to create it.

I get this on one level yet miss it completely on another. The other is the, how not to do it. Just because I know there is not a good reason to worry about something that may or may not happen, in four years, it does not mean I don’t worry about it!

Even worse, when I worry or get ‘scared’ about something, my first reaction is to be angry. My fear goes to angry in seconds. Not kill someone angry but, passive-aggressive, being a pain in the ass to deal with anger. Not helpful in most situations. None that I can even think of.

So I find myself trying to be present and concerned for things to come.  I find myself missing moments now while thinking about the possibility of something in the future. I find myself going back and forth quickly on occasion.  I’m here then I am there in the blink of an eye.

Just one of those things.

A V