Thinking of the future

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to 'shred oranges and scrub the floor.
—D. H. Lawrence

Living in the present is one of the core tenets of Al-Anon. There is even a daily reader whose title is One Day at a Time. Most of the time I can think about just today. I'm not one who dwells on the past thanks to the program. But I do have moments when I start to think about the future.

When I was a lot younger I was living for tomorrow. When I was a kid I couldn't wait to be older so I could do more things! My major advisor told me in graduate school to not rush and push so hard because these are going to be the most exciting days of my academic career. Joni Mitchell's great song "The Circle Game" comes to mind.

As I got older, not living in the present meant that I would lie awake and think about all the things that I had to get done at work the next day. Or I would start planning a happy event and my thinking would move toward the desired or "expected" outcome. I've found that there is very little that I can do about anything in the middle of the night, except sleep and pray.

But what about those moments when I start to see the present moment fly past? This is how my thinking will go: "I'm getting older and there is much to do. The days are going past much faster than they used to. I don't have much time left since my life is about half over." And on and on it goes.

And at that point in my thinking about how tempus is fugit, I start to build expectations. I start to think that I only have this one life and yet there is so much still that I would like to do. So that leads me to try to orchestrate my future and generally someone else's as well. And the outcome is that I start to miss out on what is happening now. I start missing the journey because I'm wasting so much energy planning the future.

I have read that people who sacrifice the present for the future feel little accomplishment when they get to that goal that they reached. That's because they will start looking towards the next goal and sacrificing the now for yet another future.

I'm still working on learning to live in the present and just be in the moment. I'm learning to enjoy the journey and not look for the destination. I wonder, too, if learning to live in the present is not a process of aging. When the future is short compared with the past, the moment seems to shine with more urgency.

This doesn't mean that I have to give up all future plans. Living in the moment doesn't mean to shuck all responsibility or become cavalier about everything. I have bills to pay, doctor visits to make, deadlines for work proposals and reports. I just don't choose to obsess over my future. I like to strive for a balanced awareness of my past, present and future with the present being my fulcrum on life's see saw.

I like the way my life is now. I have more freedom to do what I want, when I want to and with whom. So now I would definitely say I'm living for happiness and satisfaction today. I know that I'm not going to be happy every day, but satisfaction with life covers a lot of ground.

How I spent today

Well, I spent it playing in the mud. Actually, it was more like running mud through my fingers, sieving the mud, and then looking for critters that aren't supposed to be in this area of the coast. It was a good day on the water handling all types of gear like trawls, plankton nets, and dredges (shown below).

There's really nothing like being out on the water working. I stay in my office a lot more than I like most of the time, so it's a real treat to be able to get paid to do something that I love to do, be on a boat.

We found four invasive invertebrate species today. The neatest find of the day came from an abandoned crab pot that was encrusted with a number of species. There were hundreds of an invasive isopod (a member of the crustacean group). And inside the trap were several large stone crabs that had legal sized claws. We had stone crab claws tonight as an appetizer for dinner cooked at the field station.

That's what drew me to this work: the thrill of finding the unexpected. And tomorrow is another day of unexpected things, just like in life in general.

Roundup impressions

I went to the first speaker session at 8 PM last night. The roundup is being held on an island that has a lot of resort homes but also has the feeling of a small town. It definitely is one of my favorite places to visit. Beautiful old trees, the ocean right there, and not too many McMansions.

There were a lot of people outside talking and smoking when I got there. My sponsor knew several people so I was introduced. For a moment, I thought that I might be at a work conference because except for the location, number of smokers and the dress, everyone was wearing name tags and talking in various groups. The major difference was that you could meet someone at this meeting and not be asked "Well, what's your specialty?" or "Did you see the paper by .....". There was no posturing and arrogance. I felt comfortable and glad to see so many happy faces.

The speaker was an ex-cop from South Philly. He was engaging and funny. For me to consider some of the things that he has done and to be able to speak and mostly laugh about them, well, it is just hard to imagine. He had a defiant and difficult past, all of which seemed to revolve around fear and not fitting in. These are common themes that come up over and over again from listening and reading. They are the basic behavioral foundation for so many people in AA and Al-Anon. How he came to surrender and eventually work through the steps and traditions seemed a miracle considering his circumstances and how far down he had gone.

As I listened and absorbed, I thought what a courageous thing to be able to stand in front of so many strangers and bare your soul. It's still hard for me to speak about some things without a great deal of pain. Laughter will hopefully come some day but for now I'm just satisfied to be able to talk in my meetings. I've had to talk in front of big audiences before but not about anything personal. It's always been impersonal and factual. Speaking to impress and having to have answers to questions asked was how I gave a talk. I was at least very willing to admit when I didn't know something.

What I know now is that I'll never have all the answers to the important questions. I've not ever known all the answers to many of the hypotheses that I deal with in my work. How can I ever hope to provide even the remotest of answers to the questions that I've sought all my life? There was a speaker at a work seminar the other day who urged those attending to provide information from our research with more certainty. Many of us were wondering how we can do that when every result that we get just leads to more questions. I think that is what the program does also. We may think that we are secure and well-fixed in the program and then something will come along to show us that we don't have all the answers. It's the HP's way of keeping us humble. The wonderful part about just living in general is that if we accept that we won't ever have all the answers then we are so amazed when we hear something that adds a bit more knowledge. I've always said that if I ever stopped learning, then it's time to hang it up. I'm looking forward to absorbing more knowledge about "how it works" as the roundup continues.