"Future" Problems

Happy Monday, folks! Okay, I know Mondays don’t rank high in everyone’s favorite day, but any marker that signals the start of something is all right in my book. Maybe it’s my obsession with beginnings and endings. Anyway, I hope you had a great weekend. I saw Invisible Man yesterday night at the Huntington Theatre with my friends and it was more spectacular than I expected. Be careful out there with the flu outbreak if you live in the U.S. Virtual hugs if you are sick! :)

Couldn't resist. I want a Kitty now!

SO, in the midst of my personal devotion today, I took some time apart for meditation. I focused on breathing and the three principles of love, kindness, and compassion. My meditation has no complex formula. It just is. My thoughts meandered about while I tried to refocus them back on the circular path of breathing and the three chosen principles. I filled my lungs to full capacity, deflated them of all air, and filled them again, deflated and back again. In the next second, I reached farther into myself because anxiety had been an issue lately and I wanted to address it before the day ended. What happened next surprised me.

A flurry of thoughts burst through one after the other like an onslaught of black arrows that rained from an unseen enemy: “I want to be successful now. I want to help my family financially now. I want to be financially independent now. I want my own place now. I want a cool apartment now. I want to be published now. I want to hold my book in my hands now. I want to enjoy time with my friends in New York now. I want to be in Japan now. I want an acceptance letter to a school in California now. I want all these things now. Now. Now. Now! I want them now!”

Help.

My eyes opened and I exhaled. Okaaaaay. Apparently I wasn’t aware of the two-year-old living deep inside the recesses of my mind. And what an annoying two-year-old she is. With a rise of embarrassment, I pinpointed the source of my anxiety. You know how people tell you to forget your past or how not to let your past control your present and determine your future? Well, my problem was that I let the future intrude on the peace and sanity of my present. I wanted the future I desired now and my refusal of the present brought irritability and pain. I fell back to an old habit of ascribing value to my life through a negative mind frame: my life is valuable if I have these future things now. False.

When I resumed meditation, I told myself that this present moment mattered the most and I already had everything I needed right now: the breath that gave me life, my mind, food for my physical body, shelter, good friends here in Boston, my family’s health, a teaching gig ready to start in a few weeks, memories of an unforgettable experience in Korea, and so on and so on.

When the future happens and I have those things I wanted today, I will say same thing: I already have everything I need right now.  

How about you? Ever have “future” problems? How did you deal with it? Would love to hear your responses!

Thanks for reading,

CSS :)

Living Here or Over There? Maybe it's Boredom. P is for Planning: Part 2

I see my future so clear in my head and make the mistake of living there rather than living here, in the present. I close my eyes to the present because I hate a particular situation and don’t want to deal with it. I wait for time to wreak its destruction on the present as it relentlessly pushes forward to the future. And lo and behold, time performs its job wonderfully. And yet, time frightens me. I have to be on my toes. I can’t blink, take a breather, or sit one place and think and think, my favorite pastime. Thinking. I do it too often. Or I think of nothing. I focus on emptiness. It’s nothing sophisticated like meditation but rather I stop the flow of endless thoughts, worries, and voices in my head that disturb my peace and cause anguish to my soul. I breathe. I can make a choice. I can live over there where it’s perfect in my mind and all the components making up a difficult situation disappear. But, like all choices, consequences lurk close by and wait for the right time to attack. Some don’t have to wait long; others can see years before they strike.

It looks nice now...

Living in the perfect future means abandoning my present, abandoning my life right now.   Walking zombie, anyone? Fake smiles, concerted efforts to listen, be present and respond in kind that it meshes into one big mess—all of it becomes a chore until it finally hits: living has become a chore. And that is boredom my friends. Take another breath. Zoom and focus and remember what living is all about. It’s not all about the tasks on the list, the annoyances, the situation, the external, the frustration bursting inside, or all those pieces that work together to tug that big sigh out of you. It’s about the people in life. The connections you create, strengthen, weaken, and destroy. Smile in the middle of it all and everything becomes better. The present is okay. I have to make it okay.

Press the button, already!

SO, what does this have to do with writing? Don’t get trapped in the dream. The hard work gets done in the present, not the future. Let’s check out what I have done for part two for P, Planning.

Continuing from Section 2:

Schedule Your Goal Tasks: Not all tasks are created equal.

·      Here’s a list of the important tasks needed to achieve my goal:

o   Writing 1600-2000 words/day

o   Editing one scene/day

o   Blogging M-Th

o   Staying in touch with other blogs (20-25/day)

o   50 tweets/day on my writer twitter account
o  Honing my craft- research on improving my writing, book, marketing, traditional and non-traditional avenues for publishing
o  Reviewing grammar and writing tools

o   As important as these tasks are, some deserve more of my time than others (i.e. writing 1600-2000 words/day and editing scenes and blogging). However, since these things are clearly the hardest to perform, it’s easy to fall into the habit of doing the lesser, but easier tasks, which pile together to eat away time that could have been spent on high priority tasks. Or I regularly do one of the harder, high priority tasks and neglect others that are equally as important. For instance, I feel like I’m blogging more than writing and editing my novel. That needs to change soon! Determining priorities and avoiding time-wasters are an essential component to having my ultimate goals realized.

That’s all for today, folks!

Thanks for reading,

CSS :)