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Retrospectively happy
December 5, 2013
I’ve begun to notice that I spend a lot of my time yearning for some defined moment of the future or hoping a specific thing will happen. I spend my time stressed and anxiously obsessing about when and whether it will occur. As a result, I’m not very happy. Once the moment has arrived and the thing has occurred, I will spend the rest of my life looking back on those previous days as so happy and fulfilling. When in reality, I neither felt happy nor fulfilled.
The more I realize this, the more I’m trying to stop myself at a moment of anxious obsession to assess whether or not I am happy or fulfilled. And the truth of the matter is, everything the way it is at that very moment is going well. Am I happy with my work? Yes. Happy with my living situation? Definitely. Happy with my family and friends? Absolutely. Is there anything particularly bad going on? Not a thing. So then, what is the problem? Why spend every moment stressed and anxious about things in the future happening sooner, when today demands to be savoured?
Why can I no longer slow down and be thankful for the present? I need to spend more time working on this.
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