I am often described as goal-oriented. Many of us are. I am conscientious, maybe too conscientious. I get things done, and I am ready for what’s next. I wouldn’t describe it so much as goal-oriented as future-oriented. I am always ready for the next big thing, whatever that is. Heck, I was ready for college in my sophomore year of high school (what my friends affectionately dubbed “early-onset senioritis”).
However, although this mindset has given me great progress in my life, it has also made me forget to be here and now. Always focused on how I will feel in the future, I have struggled to ask myself how I feel now. And, although I would like to throw out excuses like “It will change when I get into a college” or “It will change when I get a job,” nature has taught me otherwise.
I learned this lesson while walking in the forest by my house. I am a huge fan of off-trailing — simply walking around on the soft loam with felled trees and crunchy leaves. It helps me calm myself.
The woods, however, like to play a trick on the mind. No matter where you are standing, if you look deeper into the woods, it looks like there’s a clearing ahead. So, as humans do, you trudge over to the clearing. But then you come to realize that there wasn’t actually a clearing — just more dense woods. But, there’s a clearing just ahead! So you go farther only to discover there is no clearing. But, there’s one just ahead! This continues forever. There will never be a clearing.
The worst part? Obsessed with getting to the clearing, you fail to take in the beauty that surrounds you. This is analogous to life, specifically to the lives of those with the future-oriented mindset. We are so focused on getting to the next thing in life, so focused on accomplishing a goal, that we forget to take in the beauty that surrounds us.
Seneca realized this almost 2,000 years ago.
“Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present.”
We are all trying to get to the next step. Goal after goal, meeting after meeting, obligation after obligation. We struggle to take time to enjoy the life we are in: to really be present in the process. Furthermore, with our heads stuck in the future, anxiety is inevitable. We worry about what our friends think, we worry about whether we will let others down, we worry.
Seneca’s solution to this ubiquitous issue?
“But the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organized every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day.”
What would you do on the last day of your life? I think the gut answer is often riding roller coasters and finding thrills. But is that how you would really want to spend it? Would you not want to spend it doing the things you kept putting off? Maybe that’s calling a family member you haven’t spoke to in a while. Maybe that’s starting a hobby that you have always wanted to do. Maybe that’s living your purpose in each and every action of your life.
Realizing that you don’t know when you will die and that you can die today liberates you from the inaction that is created by your fears. Take the step today. Because, otherwise, it may be too late to make the impact you always wanted to make on the world.
