
Forward
I’ve started reading more books, lately.
I read two of Brene Brown’s books, Rising Strong and Braving the Wilderness. I read most of The Inner Game of Tennis. I read The Defining Decade and Living Forward. I’m currently reading Discipline is Freedom, by Jocko Willink, and soon after that will read Principles by Ray Dalio.
All of this reading and planned reading has me pondering what it means to move forward.
So many of these books talk about forward progress, about planning, plotting, and achieving where you want to go. They help you map out your future, or at least implore you to start thinking about it.
Up until recently I did not have solid plans for the future. I had abstract desires and ethereal goals. I had a vague sense of where I wanted to go but no real idea of how to get there, or even take the first few steps.
Some of these books, The Defining Decade and Living Forward in particular, helped me start taking those first few steps. They started me on a path of looking forward once again.
“Once again”, because up until a couple years ago I was entirely forward thinking. A lot of high school was about getting into a good college. A lot of college was spent aiming to get a good job, or looking forward to studying abroad or traveling after graduation.
It was during that traveling, which started almost two years ago, that started to switch my thinking. I became aware of other forms of existence beyond the energized, competitive, Western race for “success.” I met people who instead of career goals had travel goals. People who desired nothing more but a simple life of alternating between traveling and saving up for more traveling. I met people who were content to stay in the same job for a decade or more because it was low-stress, well-paying, and they didn’t have to bring any of it back home with them. They could enjoy raising a family and the other, simpler things life had to offer.
Thus my traveling turned into a lesson in presence. I began to let the future go, and focus on where I was in the present. I still did touristy things, but not because I felt like I “should.” I planned a day, a week, at the most a month ahead, but left myself flexible and free to be spontaneous. It was refreshing and invigorating and suited my travels well.
There was a cost, of course. The price of freedom, in this case, was a lack of forward motion. In my quest for presence, I stopped pushing myself in other areas. Letting go of the future meant that I had very little in the form of plans when I arrived back on U.S. soil.
I struggled during the Texas summer after I got back to find a job, because I was all across the board in what I was applying to. I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t know where I wanted to go, and I have no doubt it showed in my applications, cover letters, and even resumes.
Even after I found two part-time jobs, I had no sense of where I was pointed, what I wanted to build. The forward motion, that forward momentum I had cultivated throughout my life, had come to a halt.
When I was younger I lacked presence due to my thoughts always being on the future. When I was traveling my future became murky and indistinct as I focused entirely on being and enjoying the moment.
In both of these mindsets I lacked balance. I lacked the Middle Way. Even now, as I find myself moving forward once more, I struggle to maintain that presence. I find myself tempted to move back completely into that future-oriented mindset, ignoring the lessons I have learned in the last two years.
Looking forward. Aiming Forward. Planning forward. These things are all important. As the movie Christopher Robin recently showed me, though, my life is happening right now, in this very moment. If I am unable to stop and be present, enjoy the smell of rain in the morning or a weekend spent with friends at the beach, then all of my planning, all of my forward thinking, will be worth very little in the end.
Time is running out. Now is the time to move forward. Now is the time to be present.
Now is the time for balance.
