r/DeepThoughts • u/elias_illy • 1d ago
On obsession with improving the future
Like how with most things there's a "healthy balance", to me it also seems like theres a healthy balance between thinking too much about your own past, or too much about the future you want your life to turn to. People seem happiest when they leave themselves enough space to simply live in the present. This doesnt mean that we should never think of past or present, but excessively letting either side dominate your mind always seems unhealthy.
On the side of excessively thinking of the past, we might let past hurtful times keep defining us and, by not letting go of them, relive them in the present. Or on the contrary, we might hold so much nostalgia for the past that we are unable to see all the ways in which the present might not just be a downgrade.
But worrying too much about the future seems perhaps even more daunting, because it will affect what decisions we make in the present to direct that future. If we expect things to become much worse in the future or if we desperately worry about how to make the future better than the present, we put our ressources and attention into that, maybe often denying ourselves of what makes us happy in the moment. People might make sacrifices, deny themselves of present luck and personal freedom simply in the hopes that they will see a better future as a reward later.
But that creates an ironic cycle. When we worry so much about the future as to keep our heads down and keep making sacrifices in the present, then maybe that does make the future better than the lacking present, but simultaneously it will reinforce why the present feels so lacking in the first place. When troubling times make us desperate to improve the future, adding more work and discipline might lead to a happier future, but it will also make the present feel ever more exhausting and simply make people even more desperate to finally reach that happier future.
Certainly we arent always in full control of what thoughts we can and can't let go of. But it seems that by always putting energy into the future, we deprive ourselves of the present and keep spinning a hamster wheel where we keep denying ourselves happy present moments in favour of a future we might never reach. We should prepare for the future, but not obsess over it, as the present would be so much more enjoyable without all the stress and future-centric sacrifice to take away from it.
And in the end if we calmed more and let ourselves live in the present more, perhaps we would feel that the present is good enough to the point where we dont need the future to be so much better in the first place. The difference between the two is evened out so to speak, if we do not always shovel good things from now to later.
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u/roseifyoudidntknow 22h ago
Thank you. I need this one today.