How is your present determined?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

What makes your present, your past?

Some people feel that their outlook at any particular moment is determined by their past.  That what has gone before; thoughts, actions, feelings, or lack of action, are what make their present reality.

Here is a different viewpoint.  Try it on.

Your present is determined by the future you’re living into.

Picture this situational example.  You’re working in an office at a job that you don’t like.  Your co-workers are not thoughtful or considerate.  Your boss is mean or condescending. You have months or years of this to look forward to.  Your present is that you are miserable daily.  Your spouse or partner call and says that you’ve won a two week all expenses paid vacation to Hawaii and that you leave this weekend.  You’re jumping, screaming, whooping.

Nothing about the office, co-workers, personal history, or boss has changed.  But is your present the same?  No, your present is determined by the future you’re living into.

You’re in Hawaii.  Beautiful beaches, great food, exciting/relaxing activities, wonderful weather….but you have to return in three days.  You’re glum, dispirited, unhappy.  Has Hawaii changed? No, your present is determined by the future you’re living into.

There are some people who don’t get this concept, or miss the central idea by asserting that “that’s why you should live in the present, live in the now”  These are not mutually exclusive.

What is meant by “your present is determined by the future you’re living into” does not specify what that future is.  Any future into which you’re living is created by you, moment to moment.  That leaves you with many possibilities.  In fact the Landmark Forum from which this idea comes, stresses just that point.  That we can choose to be the possibility of______________.  What we choose to fill in our present with is up to each of us.

What future are you living into?  What is your present?

If you agreed or even if you disagreed with what I’ve posted today please leave a comment.  Even better would be to share this post with others and thereby get their viewpoints.

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