How to Organize the Past, Present and Future of our lives
Our thought processes make a huge contribution to the quality of our lives. If
thoughts are disorganized and unproductive, so shall our life become. It has
been observed that humans can spend a lot of time in thinking about their past
or worrying about future, thus losing precious moments of their present lives.
As a counter to this, a philosophy has emerged in recent times that suggests we
should live in the moment because the past is gone and the future will take
care of itself provided we utilize our present moments well. However, this last
philosophy is a severe approximation of reality and of what is good for our lives.
One does need to reflect on one’s past to resolve emotional
dilemmas arising from it or they remain a burden on our souls. We learn much
from it. One also has to plan for future. What is therefore required is not to
try and ignore the past or future but to structure thoughts about them in the
most beneficial and productive way so that we are freed to enjoy and make the
most of our present moments. My reflections and experience on the issue has led
me to the following that I am sharing with readers here. Consider the day
divided in three parts,
Morning hours:
These are the hours from the time you wake up to the time you have had your
breakfast and from fifteen minutes to half an hour after that. The activities
that we fit into these morning hours shall vary from person to person according
to life style. We have discussed some in earlier posts and shall not go into
those here but in the present context it does seem best not to use these
morning hours to either think of the past or the future. Enjoy the present
moments of your mornings and do not waste anytime on past or future thoughts.
However do reserve around fifteen minutes of it to reflect on the day ahead and
plan its activities. You may wish to prepare a do-list for that so that when
you follow up on that during the day, it is a productive, enjoyable and useful
day. However do not be too rigid about your do-list because you do not know how
the day shall unfold and some revision would be required of the initial plan,
playing it by the ear as you plunge yourself into the magic of a new day.
Working hours: A retired person may not have any fixed working
hours at all but these hours refer to the hours from after breakfast to around
five in the evening, give or take an hour depending on local customs. In some
Arab countries the work day ends at around 2 pm. It is followed by the main
meal of the day and an afternoon nap which is a wonderful thing to do. Do try
and fit an afternoon nap in your schedule or if not possible, even a brief cat
nap will help. It is a great way to keep oneself fresh until late in the
evening. During these work hours it is necessary that we focus on the present
task at hand unless it is a holiday then use some of this time to plan for the
future, short term, medium term and long term plans. That is all the time one
needs for future planning. As life unfolds it will be natural to revise such
plans according to feedback we get from life
Evening hours: These
evening hours are the time for relaxing, chatting with family and friends,
dinner as also to review the days activities or even reflect on one’s past. It
is best in these evening hours not to think of what to do tomorrow or in future
but keep it exclusively for relaxation, present moments and past reflection or
discussion.
So there you have it friends, living in the moment while
allocating appropriate time for past and future too.
Image source: http://www.pixnio.com/fauna-animals/birds/warblers-pictures/yellow-warblers/yellow-prothonotary-warbler-singing-bird
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