Living each moment as if it’s not your last
Time is short
I’ll never forget the day I learned from my mother that everyone in this world will inevitably die, including her. Now, to the six-year-old me who thought my playtime would never end, that news hit me pretty hard. Immediately, I bursted into tears of dismay, shocked by the newfound truth about mortality. Little did I know then, that was my first realization that time can be a scarce resource that shouldn’t be taken for granted. As I got older and learned about managing my own time, I noticed a disproportionate emphasis towards the “time-is-short” narrative. I was either anticipating the future or interpreting the past in my best efforts to “make the most” of my dwindling time.
- From elementary school, homework taught me the value of time for its deadline effect. If I spent all summer playing video games and forgot to write that book report, there would be consequences to pay. This could mean a teacher-parent phone call, or worse — video game bans. The expected due-dates and turn-in’s instilled the idea of accountability with a timely obligation to the future.
- In college, economics and finance courses introduced me to the time value of money. To put simply, it’s a paradigm postulating that money grows in value as time passes. In other words, the “future value” of a dollar tomorrow is worth more than a dollar today, potentially speaking. It’s one of the main reasons why interest rates and loans can exist to work in today’s markets — time is money, after all.
- Two years ago, my grandfather was diagnosed with leukemia and soon passed away. His death made me realize the irreversiblility of the past. If there were words I wished to have shared with him earlier, I am no longer unable to in this realm. No rewrites. No replays. No do-over’s. You really do only live once.
For most of my life, everything has been experienced through a “future-past” perspective that honored our modern need to turn expectations into a reality. It enables me to write down future plans and reflect on past mistakes. But when it comes to managing the present state of time, nothing comes to mind as a reliable method or tool for controlling the “moment.” Why is that?
Our Past-Future Model
Before we get into the present state of things, let’s first examine a typical mental model of time: The Past-Future Model. On one end, we get this trail of historic events that lead up to the present moment, called the “past.” On the “future” end, there’s this daunting expanse of possibilities branching from the same present moment. We can often view these two directional time vectors as long-range perspectives. By “long-range” perspectives, I’m mainly referring to their accumulative and visionary aspects that influence our view on the past and future, respectively:
- “Over the years, I learned to play the guitar” (an accumulative result of the past)
- “I want to grow up to become Batman” (a visionary outlook on the future)
These may be well-suited for summarizing accumulated experiences or setting long-term goals. But at best, they are rough approximations. To interpret time into more manageable chunks, our clever ancestors set hard boundaries to standardize units of time, and bestowed to us clocks and calendars to track events over this fuzzy past-future directional continuum. Despite how far we’ve come with measuring the past and future, no instrument exists to understand the present moment.
The Present Moment
Recently, I pondered over the peculiar relationship between “time scarcity” and “personal development” as the year 2020 comes to a close. I reviewed the surviving intentions I had coming into this year, reflected upon what’s accomplished, where I could improve, and what my next goals would be for 2021. Given the unexpected COVID-pandemic that party-pooped everybody’s plans, it makes me wonder if this year was a valid one or not — do I simply write-off 2020 as an anomaly, or do I treat it all the same as any other year? Things may not have went as planned, but life still happened, moment to moment. I still need to eat, sleep, think, move, and breathe. That much hasn’t changed, at least.
To be honest, it’s odd that we even use a 365-day timespan to dictate and measure our deeds (if we were living on Mars, that’d be 687 days). What difference would it have made if I didn’t accomplish something in a period or took longer than expected? Probably nothing. If that may sound a bit ridiculous to you now, consider the fact that time is a purely mental construct invented to govern and align groups at varying sizes. Modern humans are the only species on Earth that puts this much undue emphasis on futures and pasts. Even surviving modern hunter-gatherers like the Hadza and Masai would agree that schedules are a bit contrived and silly. To them, natural instincts, seasons, and circadian rhythms determines “time”. So when modern folks like us take days off to go camping in nature, we often hear anecdotes about feeling “recharged” despite being “unplugged” from certain obligations to their past and future. This is just a hunch, but maybe there’s something amiss about the way we perceive time.
The Dangers of Past-Future Management
Mind you, I don’t mean this in a “time is evil” manner. Time tracking and punctuality are necessary for the workplace and social settings. However, when it comes to introspective items such as personal pursuits or finding meaning/happiness in your life, the model of past-future time management tends to get in the way without added advantage. Consider the following self-criticisms that stem from the past-future time model:
- “Why am I not losing weight yet? (the app said I was supposed to lose 2lbs this week).”
- “Ugh! I feel so useless. (I’ve been stuck on this for an entire month).”
- “Am I a fraud? (when will I ever achieve my full potential?)”
- “Can’t believe I wasted this much time for this. (I’m not getting any younger!)”
I suspect these abovementioned sentiments would go very differently if time wasn’t seen as this sacred currency that needs “protecting.” When undergoing these kinds of thoughts of the present moment, it’s natural to grow impatient and dissatisfied with the self. Even if we all tried our best at something, we would all do them at different paces. So if we were to remove the “future” and “past” from the present state equation, perhaps we wouldn’t feel as frustrated or stressed since they no longer interfere or cause a ruckus with the present state judgment of a situation.
Be Simple With The Present
Thinking back now on my journey from childhood, I’m quite certain that none of these “adult problems” would ever concern my six-year old self. I would of thought they were pointless. Of course, I wasn’t mature enough to appreciate the values of planning ahead or reflecting. But I remembered living every moment without a care for how time was spent in the past or the future. To me, internal deadlines or validating myself against “productivity” changed that. Back then, every moment was a plain and simple one. No underlying implications or overthinking about any consequences. Maybe there’s something I can learn from my six-year old self.
Here, I leave myself a few pieces of “irrational” advice for dealings with the present moment:
- Stop Rushing. Trust the time, let it run its course. (e.g. trust the process)
- Avoid associating outcomes to time. (e.g. lose 20 lbs in 8 weeks)
- Unintentional setbacks are part of the process. (e.g. roll with the punches, keep going)
- View the process as a success. (e.g. Results are the side-effects of good habits)
- Immerse yourself. Be Playful. (e.g. don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and enjoy the process)
Remember that time is irrelevant in the present state dimension of consciousness. If you wanted to, you could be happy/successful right this present moment. All that’s necessary is to find your current process, and hop in, and enjoy the ride.
That’s it for today. Hope this can be helpful.
Until next time!
Happy New Year :-)
