46. Concern about past and future is just worry about what isn’t

Maybe you’ve seen a PBS program about a guy who built a small log cabin on a lake in a remote area of Alaska and lived there for many years alone. His provisions were flown in periodically and his legs and a canoe were his only means of transportation. Someone once told him they worried about him all alone up there. His answer was: “Why worry about what isn’t?”

Yet that’s what most people do most of the time. We often either live in anticipation of the future (what isn’t) or in guilt, shame or regret about the past (what isn’t). For every moment we’re caught up in “past” or “future” thinking we’re missing the only real life there is – the present, right now!

As a senior in the dating world, our focus on what isn’t – the past or future – takes many forms. And every single one of those forms is nothing but a thought. There’s no reality to it at all because what isn’t can’t be real. Only what is can be called real.

It takes so much effort to live in the past or future. Besides missing the present – which is the only time there really is -- we’re also usually in stress. Desiring something is a form of worry about the future. And the twin brother of desire is the stress of finding ways to fulfill it. In fact, being at all concerned with outcomes or results from our actions is just a waste of energy and time that’s simply consumed by what isn’t.

For instance, you choose something nice-looking to wear on a date because you care about yourself and about him. Once it’s chosen, however, any thought about it is nothing but worry about a future that isn’t. Will he like it or not? You have no control and your thought about his future reaction is just a thought. It has nothing to do with reality. It’s easier to just see reality when it gets here and avoid the stress of worry between now and then.

Nothing that happens right now is a mistake. It’s all just the Divine plan, playing itself out moment to moment. The Alaska pioneer was right: The so-called future just isn’t. And neither is the so-called past. That’s a guarantee, and the proof is in the fact that thoughts about future and past happen only right now – 100% of the time. Only now. Only now. Only now. That’s all there ever is. So we don’t need to spend energy on what isn’t and instead we can just be in what is. That’s where the peace, joy and happiness are.

Copyright © 2005 Chuck Custer