Enjoy the Present of Life: Let Go of the Past & Future!

“My parents did not love me as much as they loved my younger brother. My whole life is ruined. I will never amount to much.”

“All my friends are millionaires. In the next five years, I need to earn at least five million dollars. Otherwise, how will the world truly appreciate my value?”

We take perverse delight in dwelling in the past, or worrying about the future. In the process, we ruin the only thing we have, and can control: our present.

The past

News flash: The past is gone, over, done with. That is why it is called the past. In grammar, it is appropriately called the past tense. It has passed. But it still makes us tense.

Rumination

Most humans take delight in thinking about the past. That is all right, to some extent. It is, after all, a part of our lives.

Nostalgia can bring us some pleasure. We relive some of the happy moments of our lives, and our sense of joy is rekindled. That can give us a new vigor to move forward with optimism.

Problems with nostalgia

However, nostalgia can also hurt.

The word itself is formed by joining two Greek words: nóstos, meaning “homecoming,” and álgos, meaning “pain, ache.”

Swiss mercenaries who fought wars far away from home in ancient times obviously suffered from anxiety. A 17^th century medical student labeled this as a medical condition, and called it nostalgia, which was felt to be a type of melancholy.

Good old days

Many of us get emotional when thinking of the past. If we have happy memories of people or places from our past, we think of them frequently. This can improve our mood. Positive feelings of self-regard have been documented in people who have a “sentimental longing for the past.”

However, our vision can also be biased. With the passage of time, we acquire rose-tinted glasses, and tend to have a distorted image of previous occurrences. Positive experiences are highlighted. Painful memories are sometimes suppressed. It is not unusual for us to lose perspective when reliving the past. Thus nostalgia often has a bitter-sweet undertone.

There is also a tendency for people to want to return to the “good old days,” which may not have been that good in their totality. For instance, the old days in South Africa included the abhorrent effects of apartheid. Similarly, the past in the USA was not that pleasant for African Americans.

Habitual worriers

Nostalgia has been shown to create problems for a group of people who worry “all the time.” This becomes a habit for them, and they have repetitive and automatic thoughts which they cannot control. They are constantly trying to resolve issues which have been festering for a long time. Quite often, the chronic problems are not solved, but the worriers are left with residual feelings of anxiety and depression.

In such habitual worriers, dwelling on the past often leads to a worsening of their chronic anxiety and depression. This appears to happen even when they think about pleasant events in the past. The reason is usually a stark contrast between what they think was a pleasant past, and their current unsatisfactory reality.

Ignoring the present

No matter how good or bad the past was, it is now over. One should certainly review the mistakes one made in the past, and learn from them. Beyond that, dwelling on the past is, at best, a waste of time and mental energy. Life is led in the present moment, and spending that time focused on the past means frittering away a precious resource.

How about the future?

Quite often, when we are not occupied with the past, we start worrying about the future.

Most of us have goals, ambitions, and plans. We have a vision for our future: a successful career, a wonderful spouse, great kids, a house in the suburbs. We have it all figured out. And we want to pursue that vision vigorously.

However, while we are all wrapped up in that planning, we overlook a few key details.

Plans

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

-Woody Allen

It is well and good to make plans. That is probably better than leading a completely unstructured life. Most people have goals, and that focuses their minds.

However, it is wise not to get too engrossed in your plans. Plans, no matter how meticulously made, do not always come to fruition. That is why people make a “Plan B.” Even that does not always work out.

So the best bet is to make a broad outline of what you want to do, and how you want to do it, and then focus on the present, asking yourself what it is that you can do right now which will improve the odds of success in the future. And then get to work in the here and now.

Predictions

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

-Yogi Berra

When we are not dwelling in the past, we are often preoccupied with the future. Everybody wants to have a secure, happy, and successful future. So we spend a lot of time worrying about it. We think of all the bad things which can happen to us, and then mentally conjure up methods of tackling them. From time to time, we visualize some of the good things we would like to occur to us down the road, and then worry about how bad luck could undermine our success.

The problem with this strategy is what Yogi Berra jokingly pointed out in the quote above. We are unable to predict the future. A lot of the bad things we worry about never happen. Some of the good things we would like also do not happen. We can plan, work hard, worry, and fret all we want. We cannot control what will happen in the future.

This is not to say that we should never plan, never make an effort. No. We should do the work which is under our control. And then we should let the future take care of itself.

So what is the answer?

Live in the moment. Live the present to its fullest. The past is gone. The future is not knowable.

So be mindful of the moment. Because that is all that is promised to you: the present moment.

And life consists of a series of present moments.

Mindfulness meditation

This is a discipline which focuses on recognizing the value of the present moment, and living in, and taking pleasure in, the present moment.

A fundamental aspect of this is deep breathing, which we have discussed in a previous post: http://goo.gl/v9dQ0d.

Advantage of living in the moment

This is the most productive use of your time.

It allows you to enjoy life, and also focus on the only things which are under your control: your thoughts and your actions.

The ancient Indian epic, the Gita, explains:

Karmanyevadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachan (Gita 2:47)

“You have control only over your actions, and never on the results of those actions.”

Do your duty; be happy

This is one of the most important keys to leading a happy and satisfying life. Do what is right. Do your duty, your job, to the best of your ability. After that, let go of the past, and don’t worry over the future. Let the chips fall where they may.

Want to read more?

The above issues, and more, are discussed further in my book: How to Lead a Satisfying Life: 11 Universal Lessons from the Gita, which is available at:

http://goo.gl/4tp2t9.