The future is much like the present, only longer.
Dan Quisenberry
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Hello George
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Measurements are good for designing clothes, building sheds and figuring how long it will take to drive to Aunt Martha's house. Measurements are very poor and often destructive things when it comes to life. Things take as long as they take. What difference does it make to look back and see how long it took for something to happen. The past isn't important anyway. It's over. It doesn't exist.
If the future is like today then it stands to reason if you want a certain future you should be living it as much as possible today and learning thereby how to live it more. We must make plans for the future, of course, but the best time to begin that improvement program is today, not tomorrow.
I once knew a fellow who at the age of about 30 calculated at what point in his life he would be coming down with certain diseases and infirmaries. He even tried to include me in his calculations as if it was the natural course of everyone's life. I didn't buy it. I saw him years later and it seems he had successfully programmed himself into a walking advertisement for disaster. He was a mess. And he was surprised to see me so sprightly and limber. We were the same age.
It's not a difficult thing to discipline thought. We do it all the time when we need to. It's when we don't seem to need to, when the mind is wandering, day dreaming or generally unoccupied in serious thought that the negatives might start to take over, the fears, worries and depressions. Those are the thoughts that don't belong to us. They come along with the breeze and stick to the fly paper of our minds. Then we have some cleaning up to do. Heaven forbid we should discipline our thoughts to measure how long it will be before we become sick and infirm, like the poor fellow I knew. Whereas if we keep a bright, warm beacon focused on the rights not the wrongs, the hopes not the fears, the desires not the doubts, we eventually bring those realities from today into the future, as we bring the future into today. And it doesn't matter how long it takes.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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4 comments:
I really like that thing about the flypaper of our minds. Great description.
A great read for sure DB,loved the read on keeping a bright, warm beacon focused on the rights not the wrongs, etc. definitely the route to go and not let things get you down.
Positive thoughts go a long way...
I'll keep this short & sweet by saying that I agree with your point of view. It's impossible to calculate the future (as your friend tried to do) but we can nourish the present with a positive mode of thinking.
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