Content

Perhaps a growing trend in the mindsets of people is the ever-constant leaning forward into the next moment.

We cut out our next bite of food while we are currently chewing on some.

We anticipate the changing of a streetlight to green while stopped at an intersection.

We are eager to receive a text back from someone we are interested in.

We are impatient to the task at hand when we’d rather be doing anything else.

What is sometimes hard for the impatient and entitled to realize is that our sense of satisfaction about our lives diminishes the more we place emphasis on a future state of being as what grants the conditions for our satisfaction.

The more we expect out of something, the more we set ourselves up for disappointment.

The reason for this is because our idealizations are always more romanticized than how our realities actually play out. What happens when we idealize about a situation too much is an impending fallout created by the ex post de facto comparisons we make between how a situation played out versus how we were imagining it.

Perhaps we live into the idea of a dream job working out by imagining all of the positive consequences that come from having such a job. We then build upon those thoughts by enacting structure in our mind that orients us toward ensuring the desired outcome is created.

What this does in our mind is create a vision toward what we are working toward.

But our vision is only what we see, it is not necessarily what is or what will be.

Our eyes are truly blind to the future situations we will encounter and have to deal with.

We cannot predict how something will play out and, if they do play out the way we imagine, how to successfully navigate them with calculated poise and grace.

The reality is that things can be awkward when you are sitting with yourself on thoughts and ruminations about what isn’t really there for you to have.

When we conceptualize the things we want to have and be that compel us into action, we create something for ourselves to work toward that represents something that will bring us some level of contentment in our lives.

If I can only have X, then life would be Y.

Contentment is always on life’s event horizon, but it is never something we truly experience in the present unless we make the choice to first accept it.

The current conditions are always the current conditions. It does not truly matter what they could be or what they were, because what is actionable is what is available to you now.

Any time spent ruminating on what you could have done, could be doing, or will do is only time not spent on trying to appreciate the current moment for what it is worth.

Sure, the stop light is taking forever to change. Yeah, you can’t always come up with something witty to say when you’re talking to a cute guy. Of course, no one likes when their lives aren’t going exactly the way they want them to or imagine them to be going. But so what? What does thinking about all of life’s unmet conditions, missed opportunities, and untapped moments of potential do for you besides taking you further from the present, which is what you ultimately want to always be enjoying.

The moment we start dissociating from our experience is the moment we stop trying to grasp the present and begin to start time traveling. Hindsight is always 20/20, but if you’re spending too much time looking back you are taking your experiences and sucking them dry of joy as you attempt to learn from every misstep. No one can clearly see the future, but if you’re spending too much time looking forward then you are taking your desires and living into them and setting yourself up for your next disappointment.

It is what it is.

Life is what it is. Grand moments are what they are and shitty moments just the same.

Breathe through it all and get yourself back on track with making the most out of a moment when you catch yourself trying to get away from it.

Stop idealizing what will make you happy one day and just do things that will make you happy now. Now is all you have to do anything with.

Just do what makes sense and give yourself a break when you misstep or when you feel frustrated by your experience. The name of the game is compassion, and we all deserve just a little bit more from ourselves if we’re to get over ourselves from time to time.