Back to the Present

People often say that it’s funny how life turns out. I think the more appropriate saying would be ‘it’s funny how life doesn’t turn out.’ Most of the plans we make never come true. Most people will never make their grand vision for life come true, for one reason or another. Now that’s not to say that we shouldn’t strive for anything and I’m not suggesting that life will never be as good as we anticipate. Life will be as good as we make it, as good as we want it to be. I’m simply stating that it’s funny how different our realities are from what we envisioned ourselves being. 

If you had told me four years ago that I would be living and working in Boston I would have said “cool, I can see that.” If you would have said, “you’ll be supervising in a business environment,” I would have laughed in your face. But then when I subsequently realized you were from the future and that this statement would in fact become reality I would have probably cried (for several different reasons). In fact, I would have had a Marty McFly moment. You know the one in the graveyard in Hill Valley, when he finds his father’s headstone in the midst of a violent thunder storm. Marty had unknowingly been sent into an alternate reality that played out more like a nightmare (if you haven’t seen these movies, do yourself a favor and move them to the top of your Netflix queue). 

“Back to the Future” is a great metaphor for the phenomenon I am now addressing. We have a vision for how life will go and we just assume we will get there one way or another. And then things happen, or don’t happen, and our vision changes. The future we once envisioned is nothing like the present in which we now exist. And that’s okay.  

Every once in a while, when I am feeling nostalgic and philosophical I will begin to dwell on past ideas of how my life would play out. Where did I think I would go? What would my reaction have been to the present? Suddenly lost in these contemplations, my prospective shifts. Like waking up in an alternate universe, where everything is extremely different, I have a moment of panic. This is not where I am supposed to be and not what I should be doing. I can’t find the Delorean or Doc Brown and I am stuck here in this strange world. 

Don’t worry, Marty always gets back to his original existence (or a better one) and I always snap back to my reality. Eventually I understand that these jarring moments of skewed perspective, while they can make for good 80’s movie references, aren’t particularly helpful.

What I mean is, the most effective way to live is to have a proactive attitude. Expect things to work out how they work and always be prepared to face adverse or unexpected circumstances with a positive attitude. Believing that our lives have become something other than what we expected or wanted is probably only going to cause anxiety and disappointment.

Most of us get caught up in big picture type thinking and we neglect the small steps that are right in front of us. That big picture is going to change and if we try to get there as quickly as possible in large, leaping bounds, we are more likely to fall. 

To avoid the distress of not living up to our grand expectations, we should set small goals for ourselves and then work hard to achieve them, focusing on what is immediately achievable. Setting aside time for family and friends and hobbies is vitally important, but our goals should never never fall by the wayside.Don't be a slacker McFly.