Why focus on what is not? Sacrificing now for a tomorrow not guaranteed. We work to prepare our children for their future. We bring them to school. Set-up playdates. Make them study. Keep them inside to prepare for college, work, a life we believe they should have. Doing what we believe to be right, setting them up for a successful future.
Doing this, how often are we neglecting now? Telling ourselves it is to provide a better tomorrow? Yet how many times have we been wrong about tomorrow? The thing is tomorrow is coming no matter what we do today. There is no control over tomorrow. No influencing what tomorrow brings.
The cosmic joke is we are playing make believe. Doing what feels right in the moment, in the hopes it somehow sets us up for a better tomorrow. Yet, no matter how many times we work to believe we have control it can be taken away in a blink.
Everyday is an excuse to not do something. Call a parent. An old friend. Make a new friend. Be shameless. Be present. Forgo pretense. One of the worst “self-help” questions is: What would you do if you had six months to live? The point is to get you to focus differently on the things that matter in life. However, in seven months the bills must be paid. The answer of, “do copious amounts of cocaine, have as much sex as possible, and leave nothing behind”, does not really work.
Modifying the question in anyway does not work. We cannot live that way. Until we know we are dying (come find me then if I have a heads up). The cosmic joke again, we are all dying. When we die *poof*. That is it (even you have beliefs outside of that, you are gone from earth). Anything we have done or said means nothing. We no longer carry the weight of any past actions. Just… gone.
8 years ago, my life was great. Then a choice was made that changed the definition of how “great” was defined. Then a daugther that was never planned was born. The definition of “great” got modified. Then this. Then that. A rollercoaster. Outside the bubble of her and I, nothing was happening that would be defined as “great”.
What does that have to do with “there is no future without the present”? Ask me 8.5 years ago where I would be today. Yup, nothing close to this moment. Somewhere along those lines, the choice was made to focus on my daughter in our present. Life outside of her was not good. Focusing on the present was what it took to make it from one day to the next. Be here now. Get to bed. Start over. Be here now. Get to bed. Start over.
Had the future been the focus, chances are my daugther would have been ignored. The days would have been fraught with worry by things outside of my control.
During the divorce I worried about the future. When focusing on my daughter’s future wellbeing, the present was neglected. The future envisioned crumbled to fear. The present was lost in a haze. The first few months being out of a bad situation sucked more than the bad situation.
Then the present came into focus. The future does not exist. Literally does not exist (and if it does in some crazy Matrix sort of way, it does not to our consciousness. So, point stands). The present is the focus. The future happens regardless of whatever we do today. I have a bad habit of saying, “I could get hit by a bus tomorrow”. Yet, the truth is, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Or pick your poison, which may literally be a poison.
If this were to pass, what is the last memory my daugther will have of me? In our car, driving to school with her talking and talking and talking. And me listening. Not a fight. Not yelling. Not an iPhone being chosen over her. Not music in the car playing over her. Just her talking and dad listening. That seems like a good memory to end on, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow.
If you want to talk about preparing for the future, about the importance of school, a degree, etc., then we can have that conversation. For now, let us be right here, and see what the future brings.
Posted. Not Perfect.
A Vegan Father… writing in the present.
A Better Father 