The Past
It can be painful, innocent or joyful. You could think about the past and wish to go back to that time, that place, that moment. Or you could think how you never want to go back to that time when you felt uncomfortable, alone or frustrated. The past will hold good and bad memories, but you will always learn from them. As Rafiki from "The Lion King" would say, “the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.” That memory could be that time you won that game you had been practicing so hard for. You learned that hard work rewards itself. It could be the memory of losing a relationship that had once been so strong. You learn that people, in fact, do change, including yourself. The past prepares us in many ways for the every mysterious future.
The Future
It can be scary, dreamy or exciting. I find myself thinking about the future often, whether it be something as simple as, “What am I going to have for dinner tonight?” or “Where am I going to end up living someday?” Everyone dreams of what the future can hold for them, but how often does life play out the way we expected it to? In my experience, not very often. We dream of getting a good education which will lead us to a good job that pays enough to support our family of two to three kids and the dog. Oh, did I mention the white picket fence? It's fun to dream about what your life could be, and don’t get me wrong, your life could end up just as you imagined it, but our pasts tell us that things don’t always go the way we plan them.
What everyone seems to forget about though is the most important time in life, which is the present. Please just stop, hold, pause. Stop looking back at the past and wishing you were there or thinking that maybe if you had done something differently you could change who you are now. Stop looking into the future and seeing those benchmarks and wishing you were already there. Live in the present.
We often forget that life isn’t a race to get from one destination to another. We think "oh I have to graduate high school in order to go to college. Once I graduate from college I will have to apply to grad school and once grad school is over I will have to find a job and…" it goes on and on until what? Until we are in our graves? Soon you will be looking back at where you are now in life and think about how oblivious you were to what you had.
So enjoy the journey. Enjoy the feeling of accomplishment, of failure, of the simple feeling of the sun warming your skin, or the snow making everything around you pure. Enjoy the precious present because it will soon become the past. There is time to get to those big life events, I promise. Just remember the journey is greater than the destination.
