Why You Should Stop Looking Toward the Future
Usually, as children and young adults, we tend to look forward to the future and its possibilities. We tend to imagine how it will all eventually turn out, and we seemingly try to take actions that will invariably lead us to the future that we imagine for ourselves. There are various reasons why we adopt this perspective towards living, but sometimes it is mostly because we might be unsatisfied with the current state of our lives, so we unlock the imaginary power of our minds to paint the best possible future for ourselves where all things are set right.
Children are most times very uncomfortable with their roles as just being children. They want to be part of the main action of life apart from being just school attendees, so some of the time, they wish they were grownups. This applies heavily to young adults as well. Though this approach is not inherently wrong, it can easily become very problematic because we distort our understanding of the future and how the present eventually evolves into the future.
The self in the present and the self in the future are not totally different entities. Despite changes that might happen, the self is still the self. If that is not the case, then it is not the self in existence but a totally different entity. This is because our lives are about the bits of us we leave behind and what we carry into the future. I gave an extensive explanation of this in a previous post. We unconsciously and erroneously view the future self as disjointed from the current self, and this in itself is problematic and hinders the development of the highly anticipated future. A reorientation and realization that both the future self and the current self are inherently the same entity will help to refine our approach to having a good future.
System or Goals
The fact that the future will inevitably occur regardless of the action taken should prompt a review of the way we approach thinking about the future. The future is not a place or time totally disenchanted from the present. The future evolves from the present, and we take bits of our past into the future. I think the message of prioritizing systems over goals explored by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits can be of great help. In his 2018 bestseller, James Clear highlighted four problems associated with goal-setting.
Firstly, winners and losers have the same goals. Secondly, achieving a goal is only a momentary change. Thirdly, goals restrict happiness, and lastly, goals are at odds with long-term progress.
Goals are intimately tied to future achievements. This makes me believe that the problems associated with goals are also associated with looking towards the future. If that connection is not easily seen, then an examination of the problems of goals in relation to future seeking exposes the truth. The first point that both winners and losers have the same goals is also valid in terms of future seeking. The determinant of arriving at an expected future is not solely determined by thinking about or imagining such a future. There are people who got to their imagined future, and there are people who did not get to their imagined future, so imagination is not the sole problem.
It is also true about forward-looking that getting to the imagined future is only a momentary change. One thing is sure to wear out, and that is novelty. When changes occur, the impact they make is so fleeting that we soon enough forget that they are present, and we are off to seek more novelty. ‘Future looking’ can also restrict happiness in the sense that we can shun the present and all that is around us simply to achieve the perfect future that we have idealized. This is sometimes the reason why mindfulness, which produces gratitude and happiness, is most often absent because we are solely concentrated on the future. Such a mindset refuses happiness now and says that when I get to this point and achieve this goal, I will finally be happy. Future looking can also affect long-term progress because when we plan to reach a particular point and we finally get there, what next?
On the other hand, with systems, we embody the future, and we begin to live the standards of the future now. This is quite important for foresight, too. We should not view the future as a disconnected time and space because it is the self that is present now that will inevitably be in the future. The self then becomes the connection between the past and the future. This is why we should avoid obsessing over the future and simply embody the values that we hope to see in our future selves.
Mindfulness: An Essential for Happiness
A big problem with a forward outlook is that it robs the self of mindfulness of the present. We stop being conscious of the important things that are around us and simply hope for a perfectionated future that is and will not be perfect. Mindfulness requires the conscious effort of staying aware of what is around you.
It would be quite difficult to possess gratitude without mindfulness, and most times we only know what we have lost when it is gone. For myself, when I was a child, I did look towards being an adult, but not too obsessively. Growing up, I sometimes find myself fantasizing about my childhood and would not mind exchanging my current burdens for the heavy backpack I used to carry to school every day.
Mindfulness is an important part of happiness; if you do not know or fail to acknowledge the good things around you, they will never be a source of happiness or something to be grateful about. An outlook that prioritizes the future only will fail to capture the beauty and joy of the present and might only come to notice them when they are already gone. This will only just build regret in the future that is being looked up to.
Fear: The Inhibitor
The ability to live in the present is also marred by fear. We are sometimes so overwhelmed with the challenges that we currently face that we just succumb to the imagination of a better time or a more elegant past and fail to rise up to the occasion of living in that fear.
The belief in a better time in the future robs us of the ability to see that the future will also have its own challenges and fears. Avoiding the present because of fear indirectly robs us of the same future that we look up to. What is actually needed is courage and not ignorance or avoidance, and like Susan David noted in her book Emotional Agility, courage is not the absence of fear but fear-walking. It requires that we live in the present despite our fears, because that is life.
What makes up life is the positive and negative, the good and bad, the fun and the boring, the ecstatic and the sad, and so on. Discomfort and fear are a part of life, and all we have to do is simply embrace them and not avoid them because that is life.
Is foresight and forward thinking useless?
No, it is not. Foresight and forward thinking give a sense of direction, but we should possess enough agility and be flexible enough to prevent them from dictating a destination. When we look forward, we should be able to picture a person who is an advanced form of the current self but nevertheless the current self because the bits of our past also determine the future. The key to the future is the ability to start living the values of the future now.
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