Here’s Seneca with a golden gem:
Everyone
hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles. He has not lived long, just existed long.
And even though Seneca wrote these words 2,000 years ago, they’re just as relevant today.
If not more so...
“Hustle culture” is rampant. And we’re bombarded with news about the various geopolitical and climate related precipices which the world teeters on.
No wonder some people think the future looks so grim.
And I totally get it. I feel like this too sometimes.
But here’s a head-scratcher for you…
I’m not sure feeling optimistic
about the future would really help. Not if you buy into Seneca’s words.
And here’s why:
Feeling optimistic about the future - or longing for it, as Seneca says – means not living in the present. It means living in the future.
And living in the future isn’t
living.
It’s why Seneca says the man with white hair and wrinkles has existed long, not lived long.
That pre-occupation with the future has stopped him from living his life. And it
doesn’t matter if that pre-occupation is positive or negative.
To build on this, here’s a quote from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done:
The constant, unproductive pre-occupation with all the things we have to do in the future is the single largest consumer of time and
energy.
Seems pretty accurate to me.
And if you combine this quote with Seneca’s quote, the logical outcome is this:
Being pre-occupied with everything we have to do in the future (like to-do lists, decisions or
commitments) means less time for the present moment...
Less energy for the present moment...
And ultimately means sleep-walking through life.
Wowser!
Bottom line: a pre-occupation with the future is something to body-swerve wherever we can.
And as luck would have it, help is here. In the form of a ground-breaking study from 2021.
The study discovered a new method for living more in the present moment AND generating mental energy AND getting more stuff done.
Which, if you ask
me, is the holy triumvirate.
This idea is completely counterintuitive. But it's battle-tested. I’ve tried it myself, with great results.
And it’s not a mindset shift.
It’s extremely practical.
In fact it’s about as practical as
you can get. You could try it as soon as you’ve read about it.
It’s all in Day 3 of Time Conqueror, the time management challenge I’m promoting this week.
Interested?
I’m only making Time Conqueror available to people who are
signed up to my emails.
So if you’d like to join, here’s the link.