Coping with THE FUTURE
In our society, our early lives are largely pre-determined.
Go to elementary school. Get to the bus on time. Don't hit Billy. Learn your times tables.
Go to high school. Pick from 3 course options. Pass the standardized tests. Finish the items on this list to get the grade.
After high school, go to a post-secondary school... or don't and get some kind of job. Get by.
In University, take some courses. Study a lot (or party a lot- it's up to you.) Get a good grade on the final and you will pass, get a bad grade and you will fail. It's stressful, but the path and goals are clear and agreed to. Pass the courses on this list and we will give you a degree.
Then go out and get the job that your degree says you should get. Or don't. Get by.
In a lot of ways it's more fun to be employed than it is to be a student. You get a nice paycheck and can afford nice things. You can use as many post-it notes as you want (within reason). You get fancy business cards with your fancy title on them. You're treated as an adult.
The problem with those of us in the career-phase of our lives (or in that post-school self-discovery phase) is that the clear paths are out the window. Unless you intend to climb the traditional corporate ladder, the possibilities of what you could do next are ENDLESS. You could do anything, go anywhere, and there are hundreds of ways that you may or may not get there. The only way to know is to try, to fail and keep failing until you succeed or give up.
There is no grade. No gold stars. There isn't even an F on your transcript to tell you that you didn't meet the mark and you need to try again. Sometimes you can't try again.
It's terrifying.
And that- that wide expanse of possibility- is what I call THE FUTURE.
THE FUTURE is a constant weight on your back - the pressure of what may or may not become. You daydream about it. Then you stress out about it.
THE FUTURE causes the endless questions running through your mind. Is this where I'm supposed to be?
Will I ever get to where I'm trying to go? When I finally get there, will everything be okay? Have I missed my chance? WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?
The worst part about THE FUTURE is that it's no use to you today. All it's doing is causing you stress. How can you cope?
1) You are okay.
It's very hard to just get by. That in it of itself is an achievement. If you're really lucky, you have your health, a steady job that you don't completely hate, and the love and support of friends and family. THE FUTURE looms beyond, and is pressing on your back, but it's up to you to make a move. Feel solid where you are today.
2) You will be okay.
Because you're you. You're smart. You know your own limits. You know the traps: don't get addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling. Don't get in bed with the mafia and don't get thrown in jail. Don't get into crazy credit card debt. Don't believe the get-rich-quick pyramid schemes, and don't give everything away to a snake-oil salesman. If these things have happened to you, it's okay. You SURVIVED - you are ALIVE. Hopefully you've learned something. There is always a way up from rock bottom.
A lot of things may go wrong as you try to chase THE FUTURE. If you know your boundaries, overall, you will be okay. Even a list of spectacular failures makes for an interesting biography. At least, more interesting than worker-bot-went-to-school-got-job-went-to-work-every-day-for-forty-years-bleep-bloop
3) Make peace with status quo.
I'm not saying that you should settle for what you have now, necessarily. What I'm saying is that, for many of us the worst case scenario for failure will be status quo: where you are right now. For many of us that status quo is not too shabby. It's okay to want more and try for more, but if you end up just getting by, that's okay.
4) Banish THE FUTURE. Enjoy today.
THE FUTURE has its place in your life, of course. If you never dared to dream, you would never move forward. But THE FUTURE - today, right now, is no use to you if it's only making you anxious. If you postpone happiness for some far off goal, you may get there and realize that it wasn't worth the years of misery.
When you feel the pressure of THE FUTURE on your shoulders, just visualize lifting it off and putting it on a shelf. Keep your feet on solid ground and tell THE FUTURE to WAIT.
The journey is the fun part. The fun of trying to write the middle of a novel, or solve a really challenging sudoku, or climbing a really tough line, or trying on different shirts to get the right Look. It doesn't feel fun at the time, but without the thrashing we would all just be getting by as our life drains out of us.
5) Try something.
Anything.
Keep trying. Fail. Read a lot of books. Meet as many people as you can. Brainstorm some goals. Make some lists. Take swipes at THE FUTURE from your place as safety for as long as you are able. At some point you will need to jump. You will know when it is. Maybe.
You never know what's around the corner. It could be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It could be a curse that you don't deserve. Life changes in ways we aren't able to predict. Your curse could lead to a new mission. Your spectacular failure could lead to an amazing discovery.
THE FUTURE wants you to worry about Fast Enough? Too Old? Ever Get There?
I want you to worry about what's TODAY. What's NEXT. Finding what FASCINATES you. Being Happy.
Screw THE FUTURE.
Know Thyself
How well do you know yourself?
I can tell you about lists, and tactics, and tips until I'm blue in the face, but the truth behind mind management is that every single mind is different. Mind Management is about unlocking what makes YOU tick, and then structuring your life in a way that best takes advantage of your strengths and overcomes your weaknesses. In order to achieve this, you need to know what those strengths and weaknesses are.
Over the next few posts, I will take you through a series of thought-exercises that will help you discover some key facets of your own personality, and some tips to maximize your potential based on these facts. Every single person is different, and I don't think you should necessarily try to change what makes you who you are. Armed with the knowledge, however, you can come to realize why some things are easier or more fun to you, or why some things seem to stress you out, but not others. You might discover that a facet of your personality is restricting you from achieving "success" as you've defined it. You may discover that your personality is perfectly suited for a different type of success!
Now, once again: I'm little more than an arm-chair psychologist. I'll mostly be repeating theories that I've picked up from various other books, courses and sites. You'll need to take the theories with a grain of salt - none are 100% correct - but the ones I'll be repeating are the ones that I, personally, have derived the most value from in my own life.
The concepts we will explore in this series are:
- Locus of Control: who has the power in your life?
- Hierarchy of Needs: Where will you find happiness?
- Motivation: What types of things will motivate you the most?
- Introversion and Extroversion: What's the difference, and what does it mean for your happiness?
PS - Welcome to the readers from Social Change at Examiner.com ! I encourage you to check out the Index for the "foundation" posts of the blog, or just poke around the archives for whatever seems interesting 
I post about once a week.
DOING is IMPROVING
The more you do something, the better you will get at it.
The better you get at it, the more people will ask you to do it, or pay you to do it.
The more people pay you to do it, the more time you will have to spend doing it.
EXAMINE WHAT CURRENTLY OCCUPIES YOUR TIME AND ASK YOURSELF: IS THIS REALLY WHAT I WANT TO GET BETTER AT DOING?
Do you want to get better at forwarding joke emails? Driving in traffic? Data entry? Answering customer phone calls? Spreadsheets? Meetings? Cleaning?
It's a subtle thing, but it's the way we get roped into going places we really don't want to be, and it's an extension of the mantra "Work To Learn (not to earn)". Once you've learned enough to get by, ask yourself if you really want to get any better at it.
If you don't want to get any better... STOP.
Find a way out: hire someone else, find someone who likes to do it more than you do and trade skills, find a way to cancel or switch activities that make you do those things, or simply avoid those tasks.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO GET BETTER AT?
Find a way to spend more time doing THAT.
BIG ROCKS
This story was told to me in a time management seminar. It really stuck with me, and I looked around for a good video or summary, but I couldn't find one. So I drew it out really quickly (and I mean REALLY quickly, like over my lunch break kinda thing, so I apologize for that). It's kind of a third-hand story, and it originally belongs to the Highly Effective Stephen R. Covey.
Sanity Management: Introduction
Calgary, Alberta
YOU ARE YOUR OWN OPPONENT
Energy Management: Intro
Nanaimo, BC
Introduction
Life is too short to be unhappy.
Lightning Lake, British Columbia