Musing on the ancient dilemma of the present vs the future - time & balance in life

As I prepare to leave yet another conflict zone, I reflect on many things including how this time compares to the others in Europe, Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East…

Do we become more jaded and less emotionally invested over time? The answer is probably affirmative.

Another good question is whether this concept can also be applied to relationships both personal and professional. Could this phenomenon constitute a substantial part of the cause for failed marriages, friendships and careers?

The remedy must logically be to maintain awareness of this risk and continually seek to look back at oneself through the optic of another person’s perspective. This form of trans-ego meditation would, if well practiced, enable us to leave our insecurities, pride and other interfering illusions behind in order to discover the brutal truth of how we are seen and experienced by others.

Am I distant, rude, thoughtless, selfish, self-obsessed, narcissistic, sociopathic or just plain boring? These are tough questions but they potentially yield the unquantifiable benefit of accurate self-assessment; which in turn offers a pathway to genuine self-improvement.

It takes guts to leave one’s ego at the door and cross the threshold into the light of ‘warts and all’ reality.

We are in a sense victims of our own fears and delusions. To break free of them would be a golden opportunity to focus our efforts on forging a new gilded path towards a higher plane of existence.

How many times in life have you thought that you were good at something or strong, only to discover through a painful or humiliating experience that you were not quite the superhuman expert you had created in your mind’s eye.

It is only when we are brought face to face with our shortcomings that we can benefit from this dose of reality and accurately gauge our capacity and capabilities.

Kids are exposed to constant media and social messaging telling them that they can be ‘anything they want to be’ – is this true or is it setting so many young minds up for an inevitable fall when they are unable to be a dotcom billionaire or an astronaut or a YouTube star…

I would never advise that anybody should give up on their dreams and passions, but I strongly recommend applying some level of caution to protect the fragility of the human heart, spirit and body from dashed expectations.

Balance is therefore the key. Balance in our ambitions and balance in our personal investment in the present and in the future. We must live in the present but we must not sacrifice the chance to successfully shape our future – the data suggests that we are now likely to see more of it…