CHAPTER 10

LIVING IN THE NOW

I started this book talking about the importance of letting go of the past. I want to finish with an appeal: to achieve true happiness, consider prising yourself away from future-gazing too.

The future is the one thing many people become fixated on as the route to happiness. They plan, predict, hope, obsess, and desperately try to control it. When they do so, the present moment often gets lost, as does, ironically, any chance of happiness!

How often do you tell yourself that you will be happier in the future when you have something, achieve something, arrive … and on and on it goes. An endless state of dissatisfaction and unhappiness hoping that the future holds the answers to what you seek now.

Before starting this chapter, I decided to stop and go for a walk to one of my favourite places of inspiration.

When I arrived there, I was the only person around as it was near closing time. Thoroughly enjoying the space and anonymity, I wandered aimlessly. I browsed the various tombstones, curious about the hundreds of people laid to rest.

Yes, I went to a graveyard to seek inspiration!

You might be questioning my sanity or be wary of my weirdness but I can explain.

Death is a certainty in life. A walk in a graveyard didn’t make me feel sad (don’t worry, this doesn’t get morose). As I meandered along the pathway, I found wisdom in knowing that every person buried in the graveyard had navigated their way through life and dealt with the many issues we all face day-to-day. I got distracted by a headstone that read, ‘He found happiness in simplicity.’

I suddenly felt the deepest connection and understanding with this stranger.

As I continued to wander through the graveyard, I noticed that not a single tombstone mentioned:

• How successful a person was

• How much money they made

• How famous they were

• How popular they were

• How amazingly fit they were

• How talented they were

• What colour, race, sexuality or religion they were

• What mistakes they made

• Or how many followers they had on Twitter!

However, almost every tombstone did include details of the following:

• How much the person would be missed

• Names of people who loved them

• The values the person lived by

• Spiritual hopes they had

• Gratitude for their life

• How they would always be remembered.

I also noticed that the words peace, love and thankful were abundant on many tombstones.

Every one of the lives in this graveyard had a story to tell, from the infant leaving heartbroken parents behind or the teenager who didn’t make it to his eighteenth birthday party to the one-hundred-year-old who had lived through two world wars. Each lived through life’s trials and tribulations and in the end, the only thing that they would be remembered for – the only truly important thing – was the impact they had on the people closest to them. They weren’t being remembered for any of the things in our future we tend to spend time worrying about, and which, in many cases, we can’t control: when they’d chosen to retire, what schools their children had been accepted into or how many promotions they’d had.

I’ve seen many people struggle with the notion of letting go of the future. Buddhists often emphasize the importance of accepting that nothing is permanent, and living more in the here and now as a path to greater happiness. It’s my belief that we try to control our future by planning it, wishing it away and filling it with as much as possible because we cannot accept our own mortality – that we, and everyone we know, will inevitably die one day. Thinking about and planning for the future to remove any possibility of a negative outcome lulls us into believing that we control what happens to us, eases the pain of accepting that nothing is for ever, including life, and distracts us from the truth.

I think it is this preoccupation with controlling our futures that leads to much unhappiness because it stops us from noticing all the many reasons for joy and wonder that exist around us in the present moment. Ultimately, I think for most people this is linked to the realization that everything is impermanent.

I have something to confess. In my late twenties I went to see a fortune-teller, desperate to hear what the future might hold for me. I wasn’t unhappy at the time but I was curious about my future direction.

I went with a friend who decided to go in first. When she came out after her reading, she looked bemused. It was later I discovered that she had been told that she would have three children (she is infertile), that she would marry a very rich man (she is gay) and that her parents would start a new business in the fashion industry (they are farmers in Ireland).

My reading was equally interesting. I was told that I would return to my Scottish roots within the year (I’m Irish), I would pursue a lifelong ambition of learning to play a musical instrument (I went to music school for eight years as a teenager) and that the woman of my dreams wasn’t a blonde lady but a brunette (need I say more on this?).

The fortune-teller revealed nothing of value, and even if she had, how would it have helped me? It wouldn’t stop what was coming next. Of course, there is very little we can be absolutely certain about in life and here we come to the heart of the issue.

On that note, our next stop is looking in more detail at why you might struggle to let go of the future. I won’t offer any Mystic Meg guidance here but hopefully some insights that help you understand yourself more and navigate your way to happiness.

WHY YOU CAN’T LET GO OF THE FUTURE

It would be foolish of me to suggest that you can completely let go of every aspect of the future and live in an eternal state of ‘oneness’. Your mind, your patterns and the ever-changing landscape of life won’t allow it. Even monks who live in secluded conditions with no responsibility describe struggling with future concerns.

Some degree of forward planning is always necessary in life otherwise you wouldn’t grow, develop or move forward. Imagine a world where people didn’t look to the future. We would remain stuck in a place of no progress. But this isn’t the problem.

Challenges occur when you consciously spend a lot of time trying to control the aspects of the future that are fundamentally out of your control. You can of course try to influence some elements of your life but ultimately you can’t control precisely:

• How long you or other people will live

• Whether other people will always be well

• If and when you will have children

• If and when you will meet someone and fall in love

• What will happen next

• How other people behave

• Natural disasters

• Atrocities

• Outcomes of varying situations

• A predictable trajectory for your entire life.

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE VARIABLES OUTSIDE OF YOUR CONTROL OR POWER

Have you ever watched a duck trying to swim against the natural current of a river? It gets bounced around, looks confused, gets separated from the others, and ultimately exhausts itself; the current is always stronger. And this is true of the flow of life.

Learning to go more with the natural flow of life leads to more ease and a smoother journey, and it lessens the burden of trying to control everything that happens.

I believe letting go of the future doesn’t mean you can’t plan or hope for a future but it does mean you need to let go of those things that aren’t controllable. This involves learning to accept the uncertainty of many parts of life! I know this is tough but it’s an option that will bring you much relief.

If you struggle to relinquish apparent control on the future, you may well perceive life as:

• Disappointing you

• Frustrating you

• Robbing you of power

• Conflicting with what you want

• Persecuting you

This is an uncomfortable way to live and will certainly be making you unhappy.

You will at this stage know that all behaviours arise as a result of underlying psychological processes and understanding this is crucial. This is true of struggling to let go of controlling the future. In my experience, there are four major mechanisms at work here:

1. Fear of the future

2. Intolerance of not knowing

3. Angst around mortality

4. Ego states

FEAR OF THE FUTURE

Fear is probably one of the most powerful human emotions. It is driven by our threat system (the brain mechanism that protects us), and when activated it is a force to be reckoned with. When you are frightened of something in the future, your instincts can send you in a few directions as you might try to:

• Run away from the future

• Protect yourself from it

• Prepare yourself for it

• Defend yourself from it

• Stop it happening

Living in a world that is filled with threat and unpredictability (politically, socially, economically and personally), it’s not surprising that we try to manage the future. There is a problem though. Often fear-driven instinct takes up a lot of energy and exhausts your personal resources. Your internal voice may be telling you that trying to control the future is the right thing, that controlling it will reduce your fear and keep you safe, but often it doesn’t. Remember, this isn’t about situations when a fear-driven response might be healthy, e.g. if you were running away from a dangerous situation. This is living in a perpetual state of trying to control or pre-empt the future in some way. You will be left depleted and feeling powerless. You will also miss many positive parts of the life you have now.

INTOLERANCE OF NOT KNOWING

Earlier, in the chapter on worry, you may remember the definition of anxiety as an ‘intolerance of uncertainty’. I think when you become excessively focussed on the future, it relates closely to worry. It is the worry of not knowing what’s coming next.

If you don’t have concrete guarantees on what the future will bring, the brain can trick you into believing you can regain control by planning, predicting or worrying about the future. This becomes a means of managing the discomfort of not knowing.

When I discuss this with clients who are preoccupied with the future, they often look alarmed at first. The thought of dropping the safety net of future-focussed concerns is new territory. But it’s beneficial in the long run.

I overheard a fascinating conversation on a train a few months back between an elderly father and his son. The father was likely in his late seventies and the son late thirties. The son was discussing various aspects of his life with his father. His new mortgage, savings, university plans for his children, savings accounts for his children’s weddings and so on.

I could hear the son was anxious and absorbed in future worries and planning. The father listened intently to his son for at least fifteen minutes, and then asked, ‘How is life at the moment?’ The son paused, and responded, ‘What do you mean?’ His father then asked, ‘How are the kids enjoying school? How is Susie [the man’s wife, I assumed] enjoying the new job?’ There was another pause, and it was clear the son was struggling to answer. He didn’t really know. He had gotten so caught up in the future.

I was intrigued listening to this conversation, when suddenly the father said, ‘Be careful, son. You’re missing the best moments.’

Let me put a question to you. Are you missing the best moments? If so, you have an opportunity now to rethink and weigh up whether living in the future really serves you as well as you think.

ANGST AROUND MORTALITY

My motivation to become a psychotherapist was influenced by this topic. I worked in the field of palliative care, in my early career. In this area of care, there are often discussions about ‘psychological pain’ as clients face their own death. Research shows that physical symptoms worsen with increased psychological distress, often linked to fear of dying or some angst about mortality.

Many studies by Buddhists, philosophers, existential writers and psychologists show that mortality creates distress for some people leading to questions such as ‘What’s it all about?’, ‘What the purpose of life?’ and ‘What’s my purpose?’ Again, the not knowing the answers to some of the great mysteries around life and death creates discomfort in the here and now. The escape to the future can be used as a way of avoiding this or trying to find answers somewhere in the future.

Ironically, much of the research in this area informs us that many people find more meaning and peace by living in the here and now.

EGO STATES

Each of us has ego states. These states consist of how we think, feel and behave, making up our personality. Some aspects of these states can sometimes be a little uncomfortable to acknowledge. For example, if we have a need to be in control a lot of the time this might create challenges in an uncertain world. However, they are part of being human. I once had a supervisor who would joke about keeping an eye on the dictator within, who was out to take control of everything!

A major contributor to our egos is our need to be in control – to know, to manage, to take charge, to conquer, to succeed.

When it comes to living in the future, the ego can try to take a lead as the hero who holds it all together. Our egos will attempt to manage our destiny and captain all of life’s trials.

Awareness of this is important because sometimes your ego state may not want to relinquish control of beliefs such as:

• I know better.

• I must hold on to keeping it all together.

• I don’t trust that things will work out.

• I need to be in charge.

I guess the ego can be a little like a pompous well-meaning friend who believes they know better about most things, when sometimes they might just need to accept that they don’t, and they can’t be in charge of everything around them.

HOW TO LET GO OF LIVING IN THE FUTURE

Unlike previous chapters when I have taken a more prescriptive route, I am going to take a simpler route here. I am going the mindfulness way.

I think mindfulness has become a little more complicated of late than it needs to be. For me, the premise is simple. It is learning to become more present in your life, here and now. Whatever you decide to bring a deeper awareness to, and truly notice, is OK, and can be accepted without judgement.

How you bring attention to the here and now is entirely up to you. It could be paying attention to drinking a cup of tea, tasting, smelling, savouring the moment. That’s meditating, that’s mindfulness. It’s a single point of focus on one thing at a given time.

It could be a walk in which you stay focussed on your walk as you absorb everything you see, hear, feel and touch.

It could be staring at the sky, watching your breath rise and fall, or listening to the sound of the sea.

On a broader level mindfulness is about showing up – mentally as well as physically – in your everyday life. Instead of focussing on the future, it’s about becoming more engaged in the ‘now’. That involves experiencing more, listening more, looking more, feeling more, and being more engaged in the life you have now.

As simplistic as it sounds, this is where your power will be found – in the now. Much of the energy spent focussing on the future is wasted time. Most of what you need is right in front of you at this moment in time. The challenge is giving yourself permission to come out of the future (and the past) and step into what you have in this very moment. It’s no more complicated than that.

Living this way will bring you more peace and happiness than you can imagine. I know this, not just as a therapist, but also as someone who wasted many years living in the future; nothing I sought was there.

HOW THIS WILL CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR HAPPINESS

You may remember from earlier in the book that there are thousands of studies reporting on the benefits of living in the present moment. The studies not only report improvements in overall wellbeing and state of mind, but also in brain functionality.

Letting go of future-based living will have significant positive impact on your life. These are the improvements, based on my experience, that you will discover:

• A sense of having fewer burdens as you focus on managing what is happening in the here and now, rather than trying to manage events in both the present and the future.

• Reduced anxiety – future-based worries lead to overthinking, so reducing these will in turn make you feel less anxious.

• Improvements in your mood – taking your focus off the future will allow you to experience more of the here and now, which, studies show, has a positive impact on mood.

• Improvements in concentration, creativity, productivity, and memory from freeing up space in your brain.

• Renewed appreciation and gratitude for what you have in your life at the moment.

• More of an awareness of what is going on in your life right now. This allows you to make better decisions when it comes to making helpful changes in your life.

COMMITMENT

If you have spent a long time living in future-mode, this will all feel rather strange and unusual. Commitment for this part of our work is focussed on turning up more for your life in the here and now. In short, you are giving yourself permission to live fully, rather than in a state of preoccupation, worrying about something yet to come.

You will fail sometimes and get it wrong. There will be days when it feels tough, but these are the days when you will learn most, as is true of most of life.

Some ways in which you might achieve this are:

• Stop a few times in the day to check in with how you are in the moment. It will ground you.

• Schedule ‘catch a breath moments’ in your day when you take time out to simply breathe. It will take your attention away from the future.

• Practise letting go of future-focussed living.

• Become more focussed on experiencing fully everyday moments, even the simple things like drinking a cup of tea. It brings focus to the here and now.

CASE STUDY

When I worked in the field of palliative care, I had a major wake-up call around the volume of time I spent living in the future. I spoke earlier in the book about the wisdom that comes from working with people who are dying. I want to close this book by sharing their wisdom on the future.

This isn’t a single case study. It is the voices of hundreds of people I had the privilege of looking after in their final days.

The interesting thing about working with people who are dying is that they often cut quickly through the BS. It’s incredibly refreshing!

Molly was one such character. When she discovered she was dying, she booked herself onto a luxury cruise liner. She left her husband and family a note saying,

‘I need some me time and there’s milk in the fridge!’ Then off she went. I received a picture of her at the captain’s party, glass of champagne in hand, with a caption, ‘This is my time.’

When she returned, we laughed at her adventure. She had, for the first time, put her own needs first and allowed herself to live. Despite facing death, she opted out of fixating on the future.

And this is your time too! But how much of your life are you truly living?

I’d like to share with you the ten lessons these people, whose deaths were imminent, taught me about the future. These alone, if heeded, could, I believe, make us all ten times happier:

• The only guarantees you have are now. Don’t waste too much time worrying about the future.

• Look for the joy in everyday things.

• Time with people is precious. Use it well now.

• Most things work themselves out in the end.

• Worrying about the future stops you enjoying what you have now.

• Follow the path that makes you passionate. Don’t wait until tomorrow.

• Everything you need is within you.

• Make every moment count.

• Be grateful for everything life offers you.

• This is your time.

You can’t be blissfully happy all the time of course. Life isn’t a fairy tale. But I wholeheartedly believe you can be ten times happier than you might be currently.

You have an incredible opportunity, right now, to make some significant changes that will help you get there.

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of coming with you on the start of your journey. I’m rooting for you all of the way.