About being in the present

“What if the next five to ten years is going to feel exactly like the past week of your life?”

When I asked my friends this question, most of them reacted with a bitter laugh followed by a grim glance. It was obvious that they thought of this “what if” future as a rather depressing one, bleak and undesirable. But why?

Many of my peers who are around my age (early to mid-20s) seem to have this expectation, that we are in our “training arc” of life. We are preparing and building up to that place in the future where we can finally feel at peace and be happy. Graduation, a prestigious PhD program, medical or law school, or a competitive internship in investment banking which leads into a full-time position. Outside of career, a trip to some faraway paradise or a romantic partner (this is especially common), or more. Getting those things would in some magical way complete us. But we have to first endure all the hardship and suffering that is in our lives at the moment before getting to those later moments of happiness.

This phenomenon is most evident among me and my friends who grew up in East Asian societies or cultures. The idea that in order to be content in the future, we have to eat bitter things (吃苦) now is so prominent in our heads growing up that we cannot help but submit to those tendencies, the tendency of choosing unhappiness in the present moment in hopes of a happy future.

As a result of this mindset, many of us are never content with what we have. The top students are often the most miserable. We are always greedy for more. More growth. More income. More dopamine. We just keep moving on to the next thing to get or to do or to beat. And we are never truly at peace or feel fulfilled with what we have.

We need to realize that the future is but a thought in the head, an expectation we have. The future always unfolds in the form of the present. For you the reader who started reading 30 seconds ago, the future 30 seconds away has arrived. It reached you in the form of this moment, with your eyes picking up these very words and your mind putting them together.

The future does not exist, and if it does not exist, how can we be happy in the future?

 

So then, how does living in the present and being content relate to long-term happiness?

Let us define contentment or fulfillment to be the area under the happiness-time graph.

For those who aren’t living in the present, there is always this certain level of constant background unhappiness. You can see it from their tensed up faces, the hurried way they move and the shallow connections they have with people. Low level of that is stress, and high levels would be depression. I was like this for a long time, bounded by the past, enthralled by the future. For people who are not friends with the present, their happiness-time graph would look something like this.

Picture a roller coaster – a long (agonizing) build up into the brief exhilaration, followed by long stretched of monotony. For those unengaged in the present, the occasional good moments come, and happiness peaks. But that happiness is only ever ephemeral and they return to their everyday constant baseline level of some unhappiness almost immediately. The amount of contentment is very little. If we consider the signed area, it would even be a net negative over the entire period.

The goal is to be consciously grounded in the present. That is to say, to have an almost constant happiness-time graph, with only minimal fluctuations. Things happen, but you never assign them form, meaning or connotation. They happen, and they go. You let them go. You are never dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future. We are unaffected. Non-reacting. Zen. This way, we can truly maximize our contentment from life. Being at peace in the present moment is how you obtain a near constant happiness-time graph, thereby maximizing fulfillment.

In Regrets of the Dying [1], Bronnie Ware, having worked many years in palliative care (basically, the care of people with terminal illness in what is likely their final moments in life), said that one of the most common regrets that people have in the face of death, is wishing that they had let themselves be happy.

Choosing happiness is choosing to be consciously in the present. If we cannot feel happy for the past week we have lived in the present, what makes us believe that we will be happy next year, five years or ten years later?

 

One important thing to note is that choosing to live in the present does not mean discounting the future. The future will come, just that it will come in the form of the present. We are not looking away from the future. We are just focused on the present and letting go of what we should. When we can do that, our minds can be focused on the doing, the preparation for the “future”. Essentially the power law: when we give each moment our fullest attention, we produce small but consistent quality work. Each moment compounded, and the overall quality of work will exponentially increase.

Another important thing to note is that choosing happiness does not mean letting go of agency and rejecting hard work. It does not mean adopting a hedonistic philosophy and choosing the easy way out of every tough situation we face. It just means to live in the present: unaffected by the past, not tempted by the future. From there, we separate ourselves from the ego and all forms, and make the most clear and beneficial decision that will improve the present moment. This means we find the optimal solution to the problem at hand, we find the best way out and forward. We cannot change anything unless we first accept them, in the present.

 

“An archer searching for his target in the mirror, wounded only by my own arrows.
Begging to be enslaved, leading for my chains.
Blinded by longing and tripping over paradise.” [2]

 

The motivation behind the ideas of this essay came from a moment when I realized that if I continued to be bounded by the past and intimidated by the future, I may never be able to streamline my happiness beyond the brief moments, and nothing will ever make me feel good about myself [3]. To live in the present is to find peace and fulfillment in periods than mere moments. I want that.

 

Much thanks to Ian Hsiao, Eun Chan, Ho Young, Zhang Ying, Lee Jia Yi and Matthew, whose conversations inspired and consolidated the ideas of this essay.

Notes

[1] Bronnie Ware, Regrets of the Dying.

[2] Jim Carrey, Commencement Speech at the 2014 MIU Graduation.

[3] BoJack Horseman, “Let’s Find Out”, Season 2, Episode 8.

Mr. Peanutbutter
“You’re a millionaire movie star with a girlfriend who loves you, acting in your dream movie. What more do you want? What else could the universe possible owe you?”

BoJack Horseman
“I… want… to feel good about myself. The way you do. And I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can.”