I don't think future me will ever forgive present me if I unnecessarily sacrifice today for a tomorrow that may never arrive as imagined.
Yet here I am, constantly making that trade with a relative bias towards the future, obviously.
Skip the dinner with friends because building something bigger seems more impactful than ephemeral enjoyment.
There's something almost religious about how we defer joy, almost like missionaries convinced that suffering today sanctifies tomorrow's rewards.
Delayed Life
Part of me believes that thanks to the pervasive narratives of hustle culture and limitless possibility in this modern age we live in, delayed gratification has been turned into a virtue so absolute that we forget to ask what we're actually delaying it for.
The vision becomes everything and the present is expendable, or so it seems.
But life has a way of reminding us that we're not just visionaries floating toward some predetermined destiny.
We're also mercenaries in our own survival, dealing with leaking roofs and aging parents and bodies that don't wait for convenient timing to need attention.
The phone bill doesn't care about my five-year plan.
Later Comes Before Now
Somewhere along the way, we crystallized this notion that "later" was always better than "now."
Real life happened in the future tense and moving forward meant moving upward, always upward, in some grand trajectory that would eventually make sense of all the present-moment sacrifices.
The truth sits heavier than that mythology suggests.
Adulthood is largely about triage. Which fire gets the water today?
The relationship that's been neglected, the career that's stalling, the health that's been deferred, the dreams that are slowly fossilizing?
All these crucial aspects of our lives burn with equal urgency, and there's never enough of you to go around.
Even when a visionary, you realize that most days aren't about grand strategic moves but just choosing which important thing gets less attention so another important thing can get more.
Do I spend the extra hours building that future asset, or do I use that time to address the acute mental fatigue setting in today?
Maybe I could invest that money, or it is necessary to fix the car that just broke down?
Floodgates Consequences
There's no single right answer, just an ongoing negotiation with oneself.
Always trying to manage that internal budget of time, energy, and resources.
You make a choice, you live with its immediate consequences, and you observe its ripple effects on both your present and your potential future.
Going forward doesn't always equate with moving upwards.
Sometimes, progress means standing still to catch your breath, or even taking a detour to mend something broken. View it as a side quest.
Sometimes, the path towards that envisioned future involves lateral moves, or periods where "success" is simply maintaining equilibrium in a turbulent present.
The ascent isn't always linear.
The present moment doesn't wait for permission to be lived and it keeps slipping through our fingers like sand.
Meanwhile, the future is fast asleep waiting for tomorrow to become today and the past is more or less a faded photograph, perhaps, beautiful or not, but irrevocably fixed, nonetheless.
And the eternal tug-of-war between present desire and future aspiration continues.
Again and again.
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