The Future Creates the Present

The common way to think of the continuum of time from past to future is to see it as a directional arrow or a stack of building blocks.  What has been experienced provides the foundation for what is being experienced.  What is being experienced provides the foundation for what will be experienced.  It’s a nice, closed deterministic system and a kind of mental prison.  If I believe in this ladder-like sequence, I am pretty much trapped in an extension of where I have been and where I am now.

It is only my belief in this pattern that makes it real.  If I believe that my future can only be a continuation of my present, I have locked myself into a pattern that seems inevitable.  It feels as if I have no choice but to play out a scenario that is rooted in my present situation which, in turn was rooted in my past situation.  That seems to be the logical result if I believe that I am inevitably thrust into the future by the momentum of past experiences.

This tidy scheme of causality leaves out two essential elements.  One is the element of choice.  The other is the bedrock truth that the present is the only time that exists.  The past is a memory.  The future is a fantasy.  I am conscious now, and only now.  Each new moment of now is full of unlimited potential.  It is not determined by what was unless I choose to believe that it is.

What I expect is what I get.  If I conceive of a radical new future for myself I will steer my present in that direction.  Every expectation will color all of my choices.  My vision of my future will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.  In every potent moment of now I can choose to validate and reinforce my vision of the future and continue to create it or I can shift it to a different one and begin to create that new one.  Every moment is pregnant with possibility if I choose to seize it.  I can continue to watch the same program or I can change the channel to one that I like better.  The point is that I get to choose.  That is how the future creates the present.

Choose a future that your heart desires and be the self that you want to be.  You have that power and you may invoke that power at any moment.  Your life is your own work of art.  Create boldly. Do it now.