The Future Isn't What It Used To Be

Future dreams are simply glorious.  Unburdened by reality, they float effortlessly like a balloon on a string, beckoning us to chase and capture it. Our naïveté and optimism push us toward that future despite all the unknowns.

At some point in the process of heading toward that dreamy future, our reality has to become unburdened by dreams.  We are forced into the present, into the hard work of implementation.   Inevitably, we discover that the future we previously envisioned, “isn’t what it used to be”.  In the process, we discover something else.  The only real future is the present moment.

I am a serial dreamer. It is not easy to acknowledge that all there is, is the now which I inhabit. It's not an easy truth to swallow in a future-gorging world.  Irrespective of our sphere of leadership, we are obsessed with promoting what and how we will make our world better.  We are, as Napoleon said, ‘dealers in hope’.   I happen to think Napoleon was right; however, I also believe there is something about our future we must let go.

In his book “Barking to the Choir”, Fr. Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries makes a profound statement about our preferred futures:

Paradise (or a preferred future) is not a place that awaits our arrival, but a present we arrive at.  A place, in fact, we are already in.  (pg. 75)

Fr. Boyle goes on to reflect that we need to let go of the desire to expect anything beyond the here and now, because the awareness of the ‘now’ keeps us from the suffering generated by resisting what is.  If we as leaders focus only on what is to come, we lose something by failing to stop and notice the now.  We lose moments with people, we miss seeing beauty, pain, or even ideas that exist in that place of now. Perhaps we even miss God passing by. We lose something of ourselves because we failed to enter in to the present and experience what that moment has for us.

This ‘now’ perspective isn’t about abandoning effort to build a better world or widget or whatever you are in to.  It is about exercising an approach to life that acknowledges that this moment, the one in which you are standing, is the only one available to you. 

The future isn’t what it used to be. Pay attention to what is. Now.