Today, I would like to talk about the future. Well, more specifically, fear of the future. Now, many of my students, Generation Z, you know, 18 to 22, 24, along this nature, right?
Tell me that one of their major fears is just fear of the future. Now, what does that mean, for sure? What is that suggesting?
So, if I’m afraid of the future, this means that I’m concerned that maybe, just maybe, my life, my life, will not be successful, right? I might have difficulties and I might suffer and it might be endless pain.
So, to deal with this, I’d like you to, if you would, indulge me for a few moments in a thought experiment, a thought experiment. If you’re not here, what happens? What do you mean?
Well, if you’re not here, all of the fears and all of the concerns that you have obviously don’t exist. Because who is giving you these fears? Yourself, right?
I’m creating all of these fears. They’re not external. I read a newspaper, the world’s going to end, we’re all going to die.
I’m so afraid, I’m taking obviously that into myself. Am I not? When I learn perhaps to drive a car, that’s a terrifying experience.
God, I learned to drive a car and my father always told me when he taught me how to drive a car, because way back when, no schools, no driving schools, at least in the village, right?
Your parents taught you how to drive and my father taught me how to drive. And the first thing he said to me was, remember, Leon, who’s driving the car? It’s just a machine.
You’re driving the car. Even though the car was incredibly powerful, right? He was telling me that I’m in control and it’s the same in my life, right?
I’m in control of my life. What I take into my life and how I use it is totally up to me.
There’s five too many examples in history of people that absolutely suffered endlessly but were able mentally to place themselves in a different situation and overcame all this strife to eventually be successful people.
So, my question is, where are you right now? Where are you? Well, obviously, you’re listening to me speak.
You’re not in the past, and you’re most assuredly not in the future. You’re right now. Now, the past is over.
It’s over, it doesn’t exist. Whatever the past was, it’s gone. Now people talk to you, talk to me, about regrets, right?
I have regrets. Well, regrets are only memories of the past that I bring to the present, and I energize them, usually with pain, right? I failed at a test or a lost love affair that I should have done something differently and didn’t, etc., etc.
But regardless, it’s over, doesn’t exist, except in here, right? Maybe some notes, I kept some cards or notes or whatever that remind me of the past, but the past is over. You’re not going to replace the past, ever, it’s over.
The future that we’re so afraid of is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. Bad, good, indifferent.
The future is gone. There is only the now, right? Eckhart Tolle, his famous book on the now, right?
Talking about the now, right now. He’s telling the truth. The only thing that exists is now.
Okay, that’s fine. What about my fears, which are quite natural, of the future? How can I possibly allay those fears and concerns?
The second part of my exercise, imagine for yourself a point in the future. Imagine that point and pick a time. So I’m 70, but pick a time, 90, your generation, 100, pick a point, wherever it is, and say to yourself, I’m going to be fine.
At that point in the future, I will be okay. Whatever happens in my life, I’m going to be okay. Okay.
I’m going to be fine. So with that reassurance, now I can proceed, of course, to the next day, and the next day, and the next day, so on and so forth, right? I can go on into the future.
Now, what they don’t tell you when you’re six years old, or maybe they did, my parents certainly didn’t, they don’t tell you that life is hard.
And if the object in life is to be happy, which of course it is along the way, according to Aristotle, at least we have the potential to be happy, right? If the goal is some type of happiness, why aren’t we happy?
Well, the answer is, in a nutshell, from a friend of mine many years ago, it’s easy, easy to be unhappy, and of course hard to be happy. Why? Because happiness is a habit.
It requires work.
What do you want to do in your life? I just want to be happy. Many people respond in this nonsensical way, right?
Okay, I just want to be happy. You have no money? You’re going to be happy?
No, not going to be happy. No loves? No, you’re not going to have people love you?
Are you going to be happy? No. No respect for yourself?
Are you going to be happy? No. So, you see, happiness is a complex issue.
Very complex. But remember now, I’m safe, because I have that point in the future, wherein I’m going to be fine, I’m going to be successful. Now I can proceed.
I can deal with the ups and downs of existence, which are by the way necessary, I believe. Because ultimately, remember, we’ve talked about this before, the three questions, why am I here? What’s my mission?
The universe, God Gaia gives everyone a mission, I believe. And what happens when I leave here? What happens?
Now, I was reading a book the other day called The Stages of Life by Carl Jung. He said basically that as we get older, if we want to go into this happiness, we need to do four things. Firstly, we have to be introspective.
We have to begin to look inside at Leon. What’s Leon composed of? Who’s Leon?
Secondly, have to deal with the dark Leon, the shadow, the shadow. Third thing, I must really have a mission. I must be solid now.
I can’t fool myself. I must be solid with the mission. And the fourth thing I must do is I must accept that I am a mortal being in this reality.
And of course, I believe in God. I believe in transcendence, whatever that means, but that’s my private journey. You can decide for yourself.
So then let us get to work on me.
And life is meant to be dynamic and it’s meant to be exciting. So if you’re afraid, many times if I’m afraid, in my experience at least, I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
And I sit and I do this. I just allow my mind, the monkey brain to run around, right? What’s the solution to this?
Action. But I might fail. Probably you’ll fail, not only might, you’ll probably fail, but act, because that will give you experience.
And so you get up, and you run a bit, and you stumble. It’s a terrible loss. Your heart aches, pound, pound, pound.
What can I do? You’re going to remember that point in the future. All will be fine.
All will be fine. Get on to discovering you. There’s no one like you, right?
No one like you. Never has been and never will be. You really want to study you?
Look at you in the mirror. Embrace yourself. Embrace yourself.
Look at your eyes and say, I love you. And you’ll be startled for a moment because that person is just an image. In a mirror.
It’s not inside of me. It’s an interesting psychological game. It’s not inside of me because I’m here.
So that’s the external self functioning in the world, the ego, if you will, functioning in the world. Right? And upon saying this, you could feel safe because, you know, the great interesting sadness of life in a way is that all of this will change.
All of this around me, right, is ephemeral. It’s all going to change. People will come, people will go, people tragically will die, they will leave us, people will be born, new babies will come.
Gosh, it’s a dynamic life. And it’s a heck of a life. It’s an adventurous life.
But I have to make it so. So the next time you get totally out of step with yourself and you’re totally in a state of fear about the future, try that experiment.
Remember your point in the future where you’re going to be fine, you’re going to be successful. And of course, to end this all, the notebook. The notebook.
Get your notebook and every single day, every day, Ralph Waldo Emerson, every single day, write in your notebook the day and the date. Document my beautiful time. And you know what they say?
You know what they say? Critical thinking is everything, especially if I’m going to have a fantastic future, which I am, and critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care.
God bless. Bye-bye.