Have you ever caught yourself living more in the future than in the present?
Most of us do.
We tell ourselves, “When X happens, then I’ll be happy.”
I’m guilty of it too. My wife and I have a trip planned soon—a few days in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains. I keep daydreaming about how wonderful it will be: the mountains, the quiet, the time together.
Sound familiar?
The good news is that life isn’t waiting for us in the future. It’s happening right now.
Ready to find out how we can live in the present?
Why Living in the Future Is a Problem
Living in the future—or the past—creates three problems:
• We Overestimate Future Happiness. As bestselling author Anne LeCouf wrote in her newsletter,
We routinely overestimate how happy or unhappy future events will make us feel, and for how long.”
Ness Labs Newsletter: The Liberating Effect of Uncertainty
We imagine that once the trip, purchase, or milestone happens, life will be wonderful. But reality rarely matches the fantasy.
• We Miss Out on the Present. When we’re lost in tomorrow, we stop noticing and valuing what’s happening around us today.
We don’t value the present as much as our imagined future. We miss out on the enjoyment in our lives right now.
• We Grow Dissatisfied with Now. By comparing “now” to the idealized future we’ve invented, we make the present feel lacking.
Sure, most of life is made up of the routine, not the exciting. But that’s the nature of our lives, and we miss out on those quiet moments when all we do is fantasize about the excitement we may experience in the future.
Four Ways to Live in the Present
Here are four tips on how to be present in the present:
1. Downplay Your Focus on the Future.
When you catch yourself imagining how great life will be then, remind yourself: the good stuff happens now.
This doesn’t mean you can’t look forward to things. It’s fine to anticipate what’s ahead—just don’t miss what’s right in front of you.
Instead of spending all of our time daydreaming about future events and how we’re going to feel, we can take time to notice things right now in our present lives.
2. Notice What’s Around You
Last week, my wife and I went up into the Black Hills in South Dakota, where we live, and arrived at a lovely place. It’s a cliff-lined valley with a creek running through it, surrounded by beautiful, tall ponderosa pines.
Instead of just driving through, we decided to pull over, get out, and walk down to the creek. We sat on a picnic table and listened to the sound of the wind in the trees, felt the breeze on our skin, and listened to the birdsong. We spent about 30 minutes there, taking in the beauty all around us and being aware of (and grateful for) the sensations of being alive.
That short stop reminded me that joy isn’t reserved for special occasions. It’s available any time we pause to notice that we’re alive.
We need to do that more often.
3. Practice Being Present
When I practice mindfulness meditation in the mornings, I focus first on my breathing to settle myself down.
Then I start noticing and acknowledging what I’m feeling in my body (sensations, pain, sounds), the emotions that arise, and the thoughts that come up. Then I return to the breathing as a center, and then continue to observe what comes up in the present.
This is not some woo-woo new-agey hippie thing. It’s not about reaching Nirvana or an empty mind. It’s simply a few minutes of paying attention to what’s real right now.
Well-known meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal described the purpose of meditation in his book Issue at hand,
“Mindfulness entails knowing what is happening in the present moment while it is happening.”
4. Remember That Life Only Happens Now
If we’re alive, we’re only alive now. The past is gone. The future hasn’t come yet (and may never come).
We are alive only in the present moment. By recognizing that, it helps us to focus on what’s happening to us right now. As bestselling author Oliver Burkeman wrote in Four Thousand Weeks,
“Living more fully in the present may be simply a matter of finally realizing that you never had any other option but to be here now.”
Bring Yourself Back to Now
The future is uncertain, and the past is gone. But this moment—this breath, this sound, this conversation—is yours.
Don’t wait for life to begin. You’re already living it.
Downplay your focus on the future, notice what’s around you, practice being present, and remember that life only happens now.
Sometime today, stop whatever you’re doing for 5 minutes, close your eyes to distractions, and notice your breath, what your body is feeling, what emotions you have, and what thoughts arise. Be present.
AI Note: I wrote this blog post myself, using my own words and thoughts for the initial draft. I used AI only to suggest headlines, section headings, images, and text improvements.
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