Controlling the future

[Kub933]

So there is something that is finally beginning to click! It has taken me a very long time to crack this one but it’s happening. It is a hard one to convey but I will do my best

I have always (probably like everyone else) spent a ton of mental and emotional energy on trying to envisage, plan for and control the ‘future’. It always seemed so sensible, like of course I don’t want things to go to shit so I need to be planning for the
‘future!’

The only problem is that this planning has been one of the biggest sources of anxiety in my life and more than that also the biggest detour from enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. After all how can I be enjoying this moment which is happening now if I am currently entertaining an emotional fantasy called the ‘future’

But there was always so many justifications for continuing to go down this path. Even at school I was taught, fail to prepare → prepare to fail, the whole thrust of my conditioning has been to build a ‘future’, to look ahead, to plan.

This would take many forms, obsessing over how exactly I am going to run a MMA session, what things I need to say to X in order for the situation to go in a certain way etc

Trying to swing the other way and ignoring the future always put images of being a looser in my head, of not taking care of things. I believed that the answer was to stop caring about what happens and that was completely wrong!

Of course I want each situation to happen in the optimum, the way out of this puzzle for me was to finally see that actually being here where this moment is happening IS the most caring, considerate and intelligent way to operate as a human being.

The reason for this is that the persona who exists in the ‘future’, he can only run on hope, expectation, fantasy, he is removed from this moment and as such he is removed from being aware of all the facts which need to be addressed intelligently NOW. He is too busy trying to grasp at security by living out a ‘future’ in a specific way.

‘He’ can only hope that A will lead to B and then C, however ‘he’ knows deep down that whatever security comes from this can and will shatter in an instant when the actual facts of the situation happening NOW are not in alignment with his hopes. Basically I have been putting all my eggs in the wrong basket the whole time.

What I find happens now is that there is an awareness of the current facts which I have access to, right now in this moment is where I can apply my intelligence to the fullest. Even if this means taking action NOW to prepare for an event that is likely to happen later.

However when there is a pull towards enacting some version of the ‘future’, there is the immediate understanding that this is essentially a waste of my time. There is simply no way to tell the specifics of what will happen.

However when the future is actually happening now (even writing this doesn’t really make sense as that ‘future’ moment that I lived in my psyche is never actual) that is when once more I am able to use my intelligence to the full extent, action is then based on fact as opposed to hope.

What this has been leading to is more and more layers of anxiety falling away, and a confidence and solid knowing that I will respond to each situation to the best of my ability when it is happening NOW, of course! when else could I actually do something other than now.

I think this is the best I can put this into words for now as it is all quite fresh still, hope that makes sense

[Miguel]

@Kub933

hope that makes sense

Yes.

@Kub933

This would take many forms, obsessing over how exactly I am going to run a MMA session, what things I need to say to X in order for the situation to go in a certain way etc

Obviously, there are many tasks that require planning. One I am currently working on is the planning of an unorthodox mathematics program (including certain topics and up to a certain level) that I have to start teaching very soon. There are several paths to reach the same goals; there are several materials/resources I can use; its unorthodoxy makes it difficult to know if the time planned to teach it will be excessive or insufficient; if it will be as effective as I think it should be in terms of comprehension and acquired skills; the chosen path must end up linking properly with the orthodox ways in which those same topics are presented and evaluated; etc.

So, by doing all this I am indeed trying to control the future. This attempt at control the future does not represent a problem for me nor does it prevent me from enjoying and appreciating this moment.

The control of the future becomes a problem for me when emotion seeps in, generating anxiety, anticipating success or failure, feeding certainties and/or insecurities, etc. Why?

Because deep down what “I” am trying to control is how “I” want to feel in that moment; “I” want to control the emotional outcomes that “I” project, tied to the factual outcomes/facts that will indeed exist.

So, what I see is that when the feeling being takes emotional control of the now, tends to project how it will feel in “the future nows” (few secons later; years later) and tries to control them in some way in order to guarantee in advance the positive/good ones and eliminate the negative/bad ones.

[Andrew]

@Kub933 makes a lot of sense.

Reading your words also brings to mind the many successful business people i have been around. It’s very often, maybe always, that it’s what’s being decided right now that separates those who are successful in business, to those less successful.

Which is also to say, it’s very often never black and white in business. There will be extreme success, and a thousand levels of moderate success, then success all the way down to the minimum threshold before so called “failure”. And even there, below that level, there are options and opportunities.

Even in normal terms, making good decisions in the moment, is far more powerful than anything else.

[Kub933]

That’s a really interesting angle of looking at this @Miguel, I have re-read your post a few times and it still hasn’t clicked fully for me but there is definitely something in what you wrote, I just can’t see it clearly in myself yet.

[Kub933]

The other side to what you write @Miguel is that it’s not just what emotional experiences ‘I’ will have in the ‘future’ but also ‘my’ very existence is perpetuated by this habit, ‘I’ want to ‘live’ in that future moment, it’s the only way to exist that ‘I’ know of, across the past, present and future but never here where this moment is happening. Which is maybe why this took so long to click, because in order to be here now, ‘I’ have to take a step back, life is then happening of its own accord. I know that I had to investigate many beliefs and fears before the simplicity of this could finally be understood.

[FrankN]

@Miguel

The control of the future becomes a problem for me when emotion seeps in, generating anxiety, anticipating success or failure, feeding certainties and/or insecurities, etc. Why?

Because deep down what “I” am trying to control is how “I” want to feel in that moment; “I” want to control the emotional outcomes that “I” project, tied to the factual outcomes/facts that will indeed exist.

So, what I see is that when the feeling being takes emotional control of the now, tends to project how it will feel in “the future nows” (few secons later; years later) and tries to control them in some way in order to guarantee in advance the positive/good ones and eliminate the negative/bad ones.

That is wonerful Miguel, thanks for this insight