Live today as if ... it is ALREADY tomorrow!
Ruth Pearce
?? International Speaker ?? Enterprise Coach ?? Workplace Mental Health - Addressing the Elephant in the Room ?? Go from thinking to doing & dreaming to being ??
Little books with mind boggling ideas
I have started reading the book by Nick Riggle called This Beauty A Philosophy of Being Alive[1] . I don’t usually read philosophy books, not because I don’t like them, because there are so many books in the world and I cannot read them all, and I choose to focus on things that feel more practical. And philosophy books tend to boggle my mind!
But Todd Kashdan , author of the Art of Insubordination[2] recommended this one! And I had to give it a try after watching their conversation on the Family Action Network webinar last week.
Check out the recording here:
Early in the book, Mr Riggle had me thinking deeply because he said we don’t ask to be here, we don’t consent. I found myself wondering “who says we did not consent to this life?” We may not remember our consent, we may not have thought about it in the same way we would as “a bounded conscious material thing”, but how can we be sure we did not, indeed, consent?
But as I continued reading - not very much farther - the real thought stopper hit me.
What are the consequences of living life today as though there IS no tomorrow?
On page 19 (yes, that early in the book, what is what philosophy books do to my brain!) Mr Riggle talks about the “Live life as if there is no tomorrow” mantra that is so popular - in the West at least. We are all about “Seizing the day”, we have even made (good) movies about the idea...
But is it good for us?
For anxious people, it is all to easy to get hyper focused on tomorrow and the next day. We plot and scheme to prevent imagined, but often unlikely, disasters and try to anticipate every pitfall, every setback that could occur and then mitigate them (sadly often by avoiding an experience altogether). There are books about that too (for example Homo Prospectus by Martin Seligman et al[3] ).
Aside: I met @Dr Martin Seligman in an underpass in Montreal once, and for a moment he made me feel better about anxiety because he said that people who are anxious were imaginative. That we think of things that no-one else would ever dream of! (Later that night, when I was imagining my return flight crashing into a non-existent mountain, or picturing myself torn to shreds after falling off a moped that I had not ridden, I was not so sure that was a compliment!)
So, it may seem like a good idea to encourage a more in the moment mindset. Focus on the here and now because we cannot know what is coming. Focus on this moment, because in the end we are all "food for worms lads…”
I disagree. Not with the food for worms part… but with the focus on the moment part. Of course, being present in this moment has its place. But I don't think we should spend every moment living in the moment.
Our mantra of living life as though there is no tomorrow may be part of what makes us short-sighted, selfish and even contributes to the ever-deteriorating state of our planet – and aspects of our society.
If we don’t have to worry about tomorrow, then we don’t have to think about waste, we don’t have to imagine swimming in the sea and encountering plastic bags, or worse, as we swim. As we use a cotton bud to clean our ears, we don’t have to picture the seahorse that may sadly cling to it later.
We don’t have to consider any kind of pollution, and, as global warming is something that will reach disastrous proportions the day after tomorrow, or even the day after that, that is way too long term for most of us to ponder.
We don’t have to worry about the hurts we cause others, the long-term effects of the ways we set up our systems. We don't even have to worry about what happens AFTER we drive drunk, pull out a gun, or lose our temper just a little too much.
Our choices today will always be the problems for someone else tomorrow. Haven’t we been doing that long enough?
Let’s not be short-sighted. Let’s look to the future, picture it now and make choices now as though they will matter tomorrow.
As of today, I am adopting a new mantra.
领英推荐
Live today as if it IS tomorrow
10 questions to help me check my choices:
And having considered those impacts, I will strive to make choices that make tomorrow look as rosy as possible because today will be gone soon enough!
How about you?
Where is your focus?
What you do differently today if you already KNEW you had to account for it, and deal with the consequences not tomorrow but NOW?
Please share your thoughts in the comments!
[1] Riggle, N. (2022). This beauty: A philosophy of being alive. Basic Books.
[2] Avery Publishing. (2022). The art of insubordination: How to dissent & defy effectively.
[3] E., P. S. M., Railton, P., Baumeister, R. F., & Sripada, C. (2016). Homo prospectus. Oxford UP.
Ruth Pearce?is an?International Coaching Federation ?accredited coach (ACC), she is a fellow of the?Institute of Coaching, McLean/Harvard Medical School ?and she is a Distinguished Fellow Coach coaching individuals and groups with?BetterUp . She is a certified as a MIPI Coach by?Geoff Crane ?of?Adaptimist Insights , the creator of the assessment, and a certified inclusion coach having trained with?La'Wana Harris, CDE, ACC . Ruth is a qualified attorney and admitted to the CA bar, she is a 25 year veteran of Project Management, and she is the instructor for four?LinkedIn Learning ?courses with a fifth due for release in Q3 2023. Previously, Ruth was coach trainer for the?Center for Coaching Certification . She has received training in coaching from?Center for Coaching Certification ,?Moore Out of Life ?and most recently,?Positive Acorn ?(with the incomparable teachers,?Robert Biswas-Diener ?and?Christian van Nieuwerburgh ). In 2018,?Berrett-Koehler Publishers ?published her book Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-based Project Management, described by one person as their "favorite book of the year" and by another as their "favorite book about project management and team building".
Check out Ruth's work by viewing one of her?#LinkedinLearning ?courses:
?? Connecting Businesses with the Right Clients & Investors on LinkedIn. / ??? Currently Enjoying Greece ??
1 年:)
?? International Speaker ?? Enterprise Coach ?? Workplace Mental Health - Addressing the Elephant in the Room ?? Go from thinking to doing & dreaming to being ??
1 年It is February 1st, 2023. And in the spirit of living today as though it is already tomorrow, I have launched into DRY FEBRUARY and I did it a day early! The first day of my minimum 1 month without alcohol started yesterday. And today I am grateful for that. I am one day in, feeling good, well-rested and excited to see what a clear head and fewer empty calories does for me! Some feedback I have had from people who committed to DRY JANUARY is: ?? More energy ?? More clarity ?? Weight reduction without otherwise changing habits ?? Sense of accomplishment Of course, the stories are not all one of joy and in the moment satisfaction. I also heard ?? It was harder than I expected to give up ALL drinking ?? Initially it felt like my anxiety levels increased ?? I felt a little unsociable and awkward with friends ?? People kept telling me "one won't hurt" At the end of the month though they all said: ?? It was worth making the effort ?? I feel better ?? I would do it again ?? I proved that I can stick to the plan! ?? I am continuing! So here I go, one day in already. Living today as though it already is tomorrow. And tomorrow I will kick myself if I drink! #willpower #healthandwellness #projectmanagement #lawyers
Director Dpto. Arquitectura (real estate oficinas, comercio y logístico) en Terranum. Doctorando en B. A.
1 年Dear Ruth. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I get the idea of "live your life as there is no tomorrow" rule and that is, enjoy your life as it is, do as much as you can if that makes you happy, don't waste your time. As an anxious person, one that thinks too much about the future and sometimes gets freaked out about it, I totally agree with you. We should not lose perspective on the things we are doing now that have an impact in our future and/or someone else'. Not only the impacts you mentioned in your post, but the ones that makes you a better person. A better father, a better husband, a better worker, a better citizen. Those things build up with time, effort, patience and purpose which means that we build habits little by little over the days, months and years before seeing changes. This habits and changes give us a sense of meaning in life. So both being in the present and reflecting and acting toward the future are for me a nice complement.
?? International Speaker ?? Enterprise Coach ?? Workplace Mental Health - Addressing the Elephant in the Room ?? Go from thinking to doing & dreaming to being ??
1 年Here is the 10 step process included in the article. Thoughts? Andy Kaufman Lee R. Lambert Crystal Richards Dana Brownlee Maravi Melendez-Davis, CAC ACC SHRM-CP Demetra Moore CPC, PCC, ELI-MP Ira Wolfe Stefan Deutsch Geoff Crane