+1 to both jennypenny's and cmonkey's thoughts. I won't rehash my series of little epiphanies in 2011/2012, but around that time I found I was dedicating a significant majority of my mental energy rehashing past mistakes or, more commonly, looking to the future to bail me out of whatever I thought was an obstacle to being happy/content/at peace.cmonkey wrote:I completely agree and have found myself doing just this the past 5 years or so. I'll be happy once the house is paid off. I'll be happy once the house is remodeled. I'll be happy once I'm retired. I'm consciously trying to change this and its working. Living in the moment as opposed to in the future is a really big part of it.jennypenny wrote:What frustrates me is when people think they''ll finally be happy when X happens, whether it's retire, lose weight, save enough money, find a partner, etc. What if X never happens? Does that mean they'll live their whole lives without ever really trying to be happy? Life is short. People shouldn't wait on anything to get happy.
I'd like to get to the point where quitting my job essentially just brightens the color of an already great life, and really isn't that big of a deal in the end.
It's a tricky thing. Even though I'm aware of it, I still catch myself doing it frequently now. The antidote for me is to be deliberate about mindfulness or as cmonkey said, "living in the moment". Though I always have to modify that as living in the moment, but not for the moment. Have to recognize that what we do now can have future repercussions.