Why Your Best Self Isn’t In Some Mythical Future

I once lived my life for tomorrow until I realized all I had was today.

Everything I did was to try to manipulate my future self. I spent all my time “hustling,” tweaking, and doing to try to impact the goals I set out for myself.

Sure, some of the “hustling” paid off and has helped create immense flexibility in my current life. It’s not that grinding it out is bad; what’s bad is we think we have control over our time.

Life is an odd one.

We know we’re not mortal, yet we act as if we’ll live forever. Time moves forward whether you like it or not, so time isn’t our ally.

With every little click of the clock, you’re one-second closer to death.

It’s important to remember:

Time isn’t something you use.

The more you try to use it and will it into some calmer, better, more fruitful future, the less that future will materialize.

Time is never a means to an end. It is the end. When you focus all your attention on the future, all your energy goes to creating value somewhere you haven’t reached and likely never will.

You’ll always find yourself chasing your tail, seeking a greener pasture.

Oliver Burkeman writes, “We treat everything we’re doing — life itself, in other words — as valuable only insofar as it lays the groundwork for something else.”

When your satisfaction is in the future, you’ll never be satisfied because you live in the present moment.

It sounds hokey pokey, but you don’t have anything but right now. When your current self becomes your future self, that’s still the present moment.

Burkeman says it best, “Our obsession with extracting the greatest future value out of our time blinds us to the reality that, in fact, the moment of truth is always now — that life is nothing but a succession of present moments, culminating in death, and that you’ll probably never get to a point where you feel you have things in perfect working order.”

Stop postponing the real meaning of your life to some mythical future. You are here. Always throw yourself into this present moment.

There’s a sobering solution to this all:

Even if you try to force yourself into “now,” you never have a choice.

This millisecond of life in which you live is your perpetual present moment until death. The past is gone, and the future is never guaranteed, so the only choice you ever have, is now.

Trying to live more fully in the moment can feel like a challenge, but it starts from noticing, “you are, in fact, always already living in the moment anyway, whether you like it or not.”

You’re always here, right now, so the question is, “what are you doing with your time?”

Hopefully, you’re not letting it spoil away thinking about the past or worrying about tomorrow.

Do you want to optimize your potential?

Join The Optimized Report, where I share actionable tips every Sunday to help you expand your career, grow your business, and optimize life’s potential without sacrificing what’s most important. 🙏