What is a balanced life? The roles of our present and future
In a world where successful entrepreneurs and leading experts in specific fields dominate the global stage and the headlines for the general internet consumer, it’s easy for the ordinary citizen to dream of a living a life just like theirs. We attribute their level of accomplishment to a diligent mindset, leadership skills, and a certainty about how their lives would unfold early on in their careers. To us, these prestigious figures got to where they were because they knew what they were going to do with their lives from the beginning, catching a headstart on a single path to success by planning for their future.
Furthermore, as children we’re told in school to work hard in the present so that we can be happy in the future. We’re encouraged to plan out our activities for tomorrow, and the day after, jotting down to-do lists for today’s activities as well as broader speculation of our adulthood. Our appraisal of these particular attitudes reflects our emphasis on the future, of certainty, of control. But does this appraisal help us or hurt us?
What separates human beings from other living creatures is that we can actualize our rationalizations into full-fledged choice-making and skill-building. Given that, many of us conclude we have considerable power over shaping our future. Yet, bound by a fragile mortal body, we are also vulnerable to an unpredictable and indifferent universe. Knowing that is true, one might puzzle over whether future planning is really worth thinking over. If fatalism and determinism do, to some degree, exist, isn’t the act of outlining our upcoming lives futile? Shouldn’t we focus all our energy on the present instead? But, in refute to trying to gain control over our lives in immediate moments, we lose sight of our individual voices. Although we may not have absolute power, amidst the flow of forces outside of our reach, we still have responsibilities and choices within our own faculties. And so we must learn to plan for a desirable future whilst fulfilling each present moment as it is.
Before discussing how to structure our mindsets that can lead to this lifestyle, we must first adopt a compatibilist perspective of life. Compatibilism, a philosophical theory, suggests that our lives can be both caused and free, as opposed to definite entities like free-will and determinism.
Philosopher Thomas Hobbes once stated that man was as free as an unimpeded river — a river that flows down a hill follows a channel, but it is also at liberty to flow within the channel. Similarly, people’s voluntary actions are free because it follows from their will; but their actions are also necessary, for they spring from chains of cause and effect that can be traced back to the beginning of observable time. In that sense, we can deduce that our present choices do play a part in shaping our futures, so planning our futures isn’t completely fruitless. Simultaneously, we must acknowledge that how our futures turn out can’t be governed entirely by our own hand, for past events and decisions set the stage for our present regardless if we want the past to have influence or not. Similarly, our futures are undoubtedly prone to chain reactions stemming from the present (with further origins traced to the earliest pasts). Therefore we should also make the most of each passing minute, to immerse ourselves in the “now” without ignoring the prospects of tomorrow.
With that being said, adhering oneself to either of the two extremes — that being completely disregarding either present or future and chasing the chosen other — hurts more than helps. Indeed, planning for the future makes you goal-oriented, helping you preordain which tasks, pursuits, and habits accord with the future you seek. Even as a child, I had trained myself to always tag each day’s tasks as either menial and fruitless or bringing me closer to accomplishment. I classified each choice by its productivity and relevance — would watching this Crash Course video help me better understand US history, and in turn help me land a score of five on the AP exam? Would taking this specific AP course lead me closer to my major of pursuit, then optimize my chances of getting into an Ivy League college?
However, as I came to realize, this method of thinking narrowed my freedom, sometimes with a suffocating feeling. Rarely did the joy of doing something just for the sake of doing it ever appeal to me. Constant calculation of whether every little thing served a purpose for the future had taken away the lightness of inner freedom. Essentially, if we see external achievements as the only form of success, what constitutes a “successful life” does not equate to a healthy life.
On the contrary, living in the present moment may reduce stress and help you feel happier. All that is true in the short run. However, inattention to the future just to brush off the worries of what tomorrow may bring is just as detrimental, if not even more. Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper tells us this. The grasshopper, carelessly preoccupied with attending daily tea parties where he’d chat for hours, foolishly thinking life would continue granting him endless pleasure, never labored a day in his life. When winter struck, he turned to the ant, who all this time had been arduously stocking up food for the harsh winters. The grasshopper did not prepare for nor even consider the misfortunes that a callously imperfect world can bring. To remain oblivious to the progression of time while being stuck in the present, thinking that the future is still “days away” and is “nothing to worry about,” is to lose control over your life.
What these two cases teach us is that both the present and the future are important pieces of life worth paying attention to. Life satisfaction generally requires a balance of being and planning. Imagining a future and chasing that ideal life is a wonderful feeling, but one must learn to also let go of high expectations and to not obsess over precise outcomes. In this regard, the realization that we have limited control over exact outcomes is paired with the willingness to set forth landmarks to achieve, and these two contradictions harmonize and manifest themselves into our offset achievements that build our individual ladders to success.
Additionally, one should balance planning with observable action. Too much planning can lead to inaction, even procrastination, as the fear of not arriving at that certain level of quality of productivity can inhibit the mind from taking that first step forward. Rather than dwelling on whether or not that novel you want to write comes out successful, or stressing over the intricacies of a Hollywood perfect plot, just go write that story! To delay takeoff is to draw out your dread of failure. Action in the present is what enables us in the future.
Contrarily, placing your undivided attention on the present can result in a lack of meaningful progress. If we’re constantly prioritizing what’s convenient and comfortable, we sacrifice the opportunity to really settle down and think about where we’re going, think about the human condition at large.
In life, we are expected to understand what we want with our futures. All throughout life we will wrestle with this presentiment, lest we learn how to mediate between handling the turbulence of today and the unfolding of tomorrow.
