All of us go through a cycle, what we commonly call - the past, present and the future. It can probably be summed up by this simple phrase:
Now, what I want you to do is take a step back, or just give your mind a minute or two to digest the above mentioned phrase. Ask yourself if it applies to you. Really ask yourself; and I mean REALLY ask yourself in the most honest of manner, whether it really applies to you.
You may find it difficult to arrive at a 'yes' and even if you do, you probably find yourself in a paralysis state of mind trying to justify the 'yes'. If you really ponder about it, you are likely to find that most of us would find this phrase more relevant instead:
"we come from the past and look forward to the future"
~Path of Time~ by Micky Foo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License
"we come from the past to be in the present and look forward to the future".
Now, what I want you to do is take a step back, or just give your mind a minute or two to digest the above mentioned phrase. Ask yourself if it applies to you. Really ask yourself; and I mean REALLY ask yourself in the most honest of manner, whether it really applies to you.
You may find it difficult to arrive at a 'yes' and even if you do, you probably find yourself in a paralysis state of mind trying to justify the 'yes'. If you really ponder about it, you are likely to find that most of us would find this phrase more relevant instead:
"we come from the past and look forward to the future"
You will find many of us either hang on to the past or look far too forward into the future, or likely for some to even be dwelling too much in both. Very few of us actually live in the present.
At home, parents are working hard to earn money for............ family's future, kid's future, for a dream home, dream family car, family plasma tv; all of which are for the future. Children are told to study hard for the future. Parents are told to do early financial planning to plan for their retirement (i.e. future).
At work, all the planning, forecasting, budgeting are uses to make future projections.
At school, children study and attend classes to prepare themselves for exams at the end of the year (i.e. future).
Those who cling to the past are those who are likely to be seeking some form of comfort. A very good example would be insurance agents who love to say, "Our agency has had 5 consecutive years of returns on investments above 25%!"
Organisations that undergo some form of restructuring will face staff who love to say, "We were doing fine in the past. Why change and risk not having the changes work?"
Working adults who strive relentlessly for a perceived better future end up forgetting about the present - their health, which more often than not ends up in doldrums.
School students who are psyched such exam-oriented mindset end up becoming exam machines. At that juncture studying becomes synonymous to merely passing papers or to some more status conscious, "TO SCORE!!!!!". Unbeknownst to these students and especially parents, such mindset leads to waste of knowledge because everything is for the sake of scoring a miserable paper. Ask those poor souls to explain what they have learned, and highly likely they will give you a verbatim quote right off the textbook and might just give you the exact page number with the exact paragraph and line number as well! Knowledged acquired on that very second becomes priceless and can already be used if needed right that very moment.
Insurance agencies may have marvellous and maybe off-the-charts past records, but past times were probably in the midst of economic boom time unlike the current economic conundrum plaguing the whole world right now. So please explain to me how does it or can it even tell anything about the future?
Organisations who execute changes, execute them after due deliberation, after considering all past, current and foreseeable future data. Directors at a high level always look at things from a big picture - not only just the chicken egg, they want to take into account what chicken is incubating that egg, under what conditions, temperature, humidity, etc.........
In a nutshell, I too have clung on to the past too often and look too far ahead into the future trying to anticipate every possible scenario. The end result - I got nowhere. I am still where I am and in fact, probably worse off than I was before.
If you think you are facing a similar situation, I beckon for you to consider my words because preventing yourself from facing such a situation will save you much energy, time and emotional effort.
I am going to end this by quoting a famous psychotherapist, Dr. Frederick (Fritz) S. Perls (1893-1970) who summed up what I just said at length, in a somewhat crude manner:
At home, parents are working hard to earn money for............ family's future, kid's future, for a dream home, dream family car, family plasma tv; all of which are for the future. Children are told to study hard for the future. Parents are told to do early financial planning to plan for their retirement (i.e. future).
At work, all the planning, forecasting, budgeting are uses to make future projections.
At school, children study and attend classes to prepare themselves for exams at the end of the year (i.e. future).
Those who cling to the past are those who are likely to be seeking some form of comfort. A very good example would be insurance agents who love to say, "Our agency has had 5 consecutive years of returns on investments above 25%!"
Organisations that undergo some form of restructuring will face staff who love to say, "We were doing fine in the past. Why change and risk not having the changes work?"
Working adults who strive relentlessly for a perceived better future end up forgetting about the present - their health, which more often than not ends up in doldrums.
School students who are psyched such exam-oriented mindset end up becoming exam machines. At that juncture studying becomes synonymous to merely passing papers or to some more status conscious, "TO SCORE!!!!!". Unbeknownst to these students and especially parents, such mindset leads to waste of knowledge because everything is for the sake of scoring a miserable paper. Ask those poor souls to explain what they have learned, and highly likely they will give you a verbatim quote right off the textbook and might just give you the exact page number with the exact paragraph and line number as well! Knowledged acquired on that very second becomes priceless and can already be used if needed right that very moment.
Insurance agencies may have marvellous and maybe off-the-charts past records, but past times were probably in the midst of economic boom time unlike the current economic conundrum plaguing the whole world right now. So please explain to me how does it or can it even tell anything about the future?
Organisations who execute changes, execute them after due deliberation, after considering all past, current and foreseeable future data. Directors at a high level always look at things from a big picture - not only just the chicken egg, they want to take into account what chicken is incubating that egg, under what conditions, temperature, humidity, etc.........
In a nutshell, I too have clung on to the past too often and look too far ahead into the future trying to anticipate every possible scenario. The end result - I got nowhere. I am still where I am and in fact, probably worse off than I was before.
If you think you are facing a similar situation, I beckon for you to consider my words because preventing yourself from facing such a situation will save you much energy, time and emotional effort.
I am going to end this by quoting a famous psychotherapist, Dr. Frederick (Fritz) S. Perls (1893-1970) who summed up what I just said at length, in a somewhat crude manner:
"If you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future you're pissing on the present."
~Path of Time~ by Micky Foo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License
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