Present & Future
Sep 26, 2021
Seize the day. Live in the moment. Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, today is the gift. That's why it's called the present.
Plan for your future — invest in your finances and skills. The magic of compounding interest is truly the eighth wonder of the world! 1
In the long run, we are all dead. 2
We are each infinitesimally small in the grander scheme of things, whatever this scheme might be.
I've always found it an interesting conundrum—to enjoy the current moment, or to strive a little harder so that the future will be… a brighter one? Nicer one? Better one?
Of course it'd be easy to say we should find enjoyment in our current striving too, otherwise the future's not worth striving for. But that's not always how it works, isn't it? Our daily lives will be full of things we won't be too excited about, but have to get around doing, so that the future self won't regret it.
How would you live if you have 60 years left? Spend that time sorting out finances and investing well, so that you could retire well? Ensure that we eat healthy stuff every day so that 60 years will actually come to pass?
What if it's just 30 years?
How about 10?
How about a year?
2 weeks?
1 hour?
Thinking about our mortality is terrifying, is't it? Yet… doesn't it make us thankful?
There are so many sights and sounds to be seen and heard, so many more experiences to be felt and lived. However, what great fortune it has been, to have already seen and heard so many sights and sounds, to have felt and lived so many experiences.
If we definitively knew the amount of time each of us have left: Which relationships would we invest more love and time into, which would we mend? Which relationships would we stop? What life's calling would we now pursue, and which busy work would we ignore? Would we dare pursue our dreams more boldly, or decide that these are meaningless ambitions—a mere distraction from the meaning we give to our lives?
How much control do we have? How hubristic and cavalier it is—to pretend that we're able to plan our way through it all? Yet, how conceited and complacent it also is—to pretend that without planning, we'd be able to meander our way across?
So much universe, and so little time. 3
¯\(ツ)/¯