Don't Anticipate
We wear ourselves out unnecessarily when we spend our energy anticipating the future rather than living in the present. To anticipate bad things is obviously detrimental to our serenity. It is also needless, since most of the things we worry about never happen. Even if some of them do occur, it is easier by far to deal with real disasters than with imagined ones.
Anticipating future satisfactions can also be detrimental to our serenity. If we are living for an event or condition, which is yet to come, we are not completely alive to what is here now. We may build up some future pleasure in our minds to such an unrealistic pitch that the actual event is bound to be disappointing.
Accepting the here and now is what ensures our sanity and our serenity. Reality is never more than we can manage, with the help of our Higher Power. It is our anticipation of the future, which is unreal and dangerous.
May I live today and leave the future to You.
From Food for Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L. ©1980, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation.
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Many of us are SO caught up in the future, when life will be 'perfect', that each event in life is anti-climactic. We cannot experience joy in any event, since we've built it up to be SO fabulous in our minds that no real life event can hold a candle to that fantasy.
My favorite example is traveling to Istanbul Turkey last October. I had NO expectation or pre-conceived notion of that country built up in my mind prior to arrival. I wasn't looking forward to it, in fact, but it was part of the itinerary along with Greece & inland Turkey. Well, imagine my surprise and delight to find that Istanbul was my favorite port of call! Had I done my usual 'homework', reading everything I could get my hands on about Istanbul, I probably would have been disappointed with the reality. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised & delighted.
Next month we travel to 5 countries in Eastern Europe on a river cruise. I've purposely done NO 'homework' on these countries, and I plan to arrive at those destinations unprepared for what awaits me. I will not spend my energy anticipating future satisfactions, but will remain present in THIS moment ONLY. If I expend my energy building up the anticipation of visiting these countries, the actual event is likely to be disappointing indeed.
Weight loss is particularly 'disappointing' and anti-climactic when we reach our goal weight.........we believe life is going to be perfect when we reach the utopian state of 'goal', and when we find that nothing much changes except the size tag in our jeans, boy howdy, we're let down and disappointed beyond belief.
The joy is in the journey, truthfully, and not in the end result of any given situation.
For today, may I LIVE today & leave the future in God's hands.
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