William Oldacre Photography

Tag: planning

  • Living In The Present

    Living In The Present

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, muted, streaks, waves, patterns
    Rushing Torrent Of Light, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I read a summary the other day that struck a chord about a book called Present Shock – When Everything Happens Now. I’ve already been thinking a great deal about the present versus the future. I spend a great deal of time with my head in the future – scheduling and planning out my life – partly because I have to in order to operate my business efficiently and painlessly, but I noticed that planning and thinking about the future was becoming something of an obsession. So much that I failed to notice the moment – I was constantly thinking what’s next – just trying to get through the drudgery of the present so I could get to the future – where I would be happy. Except I wasn’t happy when the future arrived and became the present.

    It was making the pace of my life insane and it meant I missed out or glossed over the small moments that are the fabric of life. It dawned on me a while ago that my obsessive planning and scheming about the future was interfering with my enjoyment of the process of living – the journey. It was making me feel empty. I realized happiness could only be found by living in the present.

    Its funny because all this time I thought I was alone in my obsession and emptiness. According to Douglas Rushkoff this is symptomatic of our current state of affairs ie real time technologies like texting, emailing and social networking – we’re always on. He says we can choose to play an eternal game of catch-up or we can live in the present favouring quality over speed.

    I’m trying to live in the moment and it feels better – but its tough to do. Where to draw the line – when it comes to planning or immediacy what things are “necessary” – what things are useful and what things are detrimental. Those are probably personal decisions – everyone’s life and tolerances are different.

    I’m amazed how quickly life flies past when I’m not watching closely yet somehow at the same time crawls past with respect to my dreams and goals – its strangely ironic. My son keeps growing and changing – saying more and more interesting, amusing things. It happens so quickly, if I’m not paying constant attention I miss out, but I still believe in the importance of dreaming about the future. Dreams drive us forward and keep us growing but they have their place. There has to be a balance between dreaming and living here, now. Its tricky to balance the vigilance of the moment with the desire to progress in life.

    Time marches on, even when we’re watching elsewhere.

  • Method And Madness

    I spend of lot of my time thinking ahead about projects I want to complete. I’m very goal focused – which from time to time leads to crushing depression when I fail those goals. I’ve been noticing how unhappy I’m feeling lately – despite managing to accomplish a great deal and methodically meeting many of my goals. I decided to try and spend less time in my head planning and analyzing new projects and how I can fit all these glorious little nuggets together into the perfect jigsaw puzzle that will become my life and instead to exclusively focus on the present – the now – the moment. This is… impossible, well – difficult at least.

    I’ve been feeling crushingly nostalgic about things I’ve done, people I’ve known, moments I’ve experienced, places I’ve been etc and it dawned on me that perhaps I was nostalgic because I wasn’t paying enough attention to them when they were actually happening. That instead of being in the moment fully experiencing them, I was off somewhere in my head planning away my future – looking past the horizon.

    I still think it’s important to plan and to have plans… but… maybe I need a better balance of present and future in my life. Something more in line with that life is a journey not a destination idea.

    It’s only been a few days so far – but I’m feeling a bit better and a lot less futile about my existence. I still have BIG plans and lots of ideas and goals – of course, but I’m trying really hard to let them simmer in the background while I smell the air and listen to the sounds – and try to be a little less self-absorbed. Difficult, but worth it.

    I think if you boil down all your life’s actions, plans, goals etc, it all comes down to this:
    Did you have a good time?

    And if that is the FINAL word on life – then why not focus on it.