Your future affects your present.

Did you know your future affects your present?! Most people will be extremely confused since the quote is that most people know is “your past affects your present”. This is true in some way and it can be true for the better or the worse. Most people use their past as an excuse for their fucked up present which will then lead to a fucked up future. This excuse is equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot, we all have fucked up things that happened to us in the past. Yet not everybody ends up being fucked up. Some people have a fucked up past and end up doing great things. They live a life that most people didn’t even consider possible. So that brings us to today’s topic. Your future will affect your present. It’ll affect it way more than you imagine.

Your future affects your present.

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re assuming that your present can only be affected by your past because you know what happened. The future, on the other hand, is unsure and you realize that you can’t predict it, although you wish you could. But stick with me, imagine that you plan an activity that takes place next month (traveling to your dream location for example) how would that make you feel? You’d be full of joy right?! Your present is now affected by your future. But this is only temporary happiness since after the holiday you’ll have to go back to ‘reality’. Well, it brings you back to your belief of what reality is. Which brings me exactly to where I wanted to be.

Your future, present and so on.

Chances are that you’re part of the system if you’re reading this blog. You have the regular 9 to 5, are stuck in traffic every day of the workweek, hate your job,… For most people, this is a sad but daily reality. You can’t afford to be late because they can fire you if it happens 3 times. You can’t speak your mind to your horrible boss because you can get fired etc. you need the monthly paycheck because you’re in debt, had some impulse expenses or just like the comfort of it. Chances are that your future looks like this until you can retire which isn’t a pleasant prospect. That state of mind will affect your present situation tremendously. Why would you wake up excited if you hate the next 40 years of your life?!

Back to the future… a different future.

But now imagine that you can have a future to look forward to. Imagine you could have the feeling of traveling to your dream location every single day. This is possible. Imagine being stuck in traffic but not having to care when you show up. Which means that you’d be late but still on time. Imagine doing something that you enjoy doing every single day. You’re free-flowing through things and have a lot of time to think about other things. Your mind isn’t clouded by unhappiness and that serves you bigtime.

Chasing your goals/dreams/purpose will make sure that you live in a joyful present. The only thing that people don’t realize is that it takes way more work to live your dream than not living your dream. But not living your dream means that you’re stuck in the system with the accompanying negative feelings.

It’s all up to you.

It’s up to you to decide what your dream is. Living your dreams means that you’re setting a goal and living that goal. You do it every single day. Like every day I try to be a fighter. I try and I become.

Some people want to become a professional athlete and others want to be a parent. Not everybody’s dream involves being in the spotlight. It doesn’t have to be either. Do what you want to do and make sure you’re the best at it. That’s all that matters. So be the best parent you can be if that’s your dream. Nobody should look down on your dreams. Forget about the “that’s not ambitious enough”. It’s up to you to decide what you want and it’s up to you to get after it. It’s your choice and responsibility to get after it. The fact that you don’t get after it is your responsibility as well. In the end, you might not like your circumstances but it’s your choice to stay in them. Only people with a victim mindset would complain about their circumstances and do nothing.

But what if you don’t like your current circumstances and don’t know what you want? Well, I can help with that.

Your future bank account.

Imagine that money didn’t matter what would you do? My answer to the question was “this”. I was referring to the fact that I was very happy with my current lifestyle. I’ve asked this question to a lot of people the last year to help them figure out what they wanted. Most of them figured that one out really quickly, others needed some more time but found it eventually. They all made the same remark. They were all concerned about the money. I can only say one thing to that: there are people with way less money working to achieve what you want. Those people are also finding ways to make money while they do what you wanted to do (hint it involves the internet). Stuff to think about. In the end, it must be fun to have a huge bank account but that’s kind of irrelevant if you’re unhappy. You can also be happy and have a huge bank account. It’ll just take some more time. Chasing what you want might mean that you have to live below your means, move back in with your parents, rely on your partner for money,…

It’s like I said before: “it takes way more work to live your dream than not living your dream.” You’ll have to make sacrifices (are they really?), be prepared to be mocked, misunderstood and so on.