KANISA GEORGE
TO GET through the rigours of life, most, if not all, of us resort to the looking-forward approach. Over the last decade or so, this reward-focused concept has become a modern-day ritual often used to reward the sacrifices we make in our pursuit of happiness.
That upcoming girls trip somehow makes burning the midnight oil worth it, even if it comes at a great cost to your personal life. It's as if looking forward to the next big, exciting thing has become the end game, and everything leading up to the event is merely a stepping stone to happiness.
Life is a series of experiences, good, bad and in between, and when we experience rainy days, having an optimistic outlook on the potential sunshine in our future is crucial to enduring difficult times. Even when life becomes a hodgepodge of mundanity, we resort to daydreaming about what we'll do on vacation or liming plans for the upcoming long weekend to overcome the inevitable angst we feel about inertia.
Setting your sights on adventures to come is undoubtedly therapeutic and a useful coping mechanism. Even so, far too often this concept has become the rule and not the exception, and instead of relishing in the tiny moments that add to our life experience, we focus on placing our hopes, expectations and sometimes even our happiness on things yet to come.
Have we become imprisoned to the looking-forward approach? By using anticipation as a tool for continued growth, are we foregoing the very act of living?
Research shows that anticipating positive future events is a powerful force in our lives and can influence how we approach difficult situations.
Clinical psychologist Ryan Howes asserts that when we contemplate positive future events like birthday celebrations or vacations, we become excited, anxious and filled with all the positive feelings of anticipation. This is particularly useful in highly stressful periods of our lives when our mental health is affected.
On the flip side, placing far too much over-reliance on the future or otherwise living in the "there" instead of the "here" can have vastly damaging consequences to our mental health and quality of life.
If we aren't careful, our present existence or immediate future might be overshadowed by the expectations and possibilities we dream up for the future. As a result, we might fall prey to the wandering mind.
While daydreaming about the potential for future happiness can be a pleasant distraction, overreliance on this state can set a dangerous precedent and derail your sense of the "here and now." When our mind goes on a magic carpet ride, we wander about the desired outcome and sidestep reality. In essence, we create a whole new world that doesn't even exist.
While the present is a firm existence, the future is something we can change and manipulate to our liking. Thus, we use it as a form of escapism. We avoid the now because, quite frankly, it can be too challenging to face.
But as lovely as it is to live in the future, research suggests that living in the presen
