If my happiness at this moment
consists largely in reviewing
happy memories and expectations,
I am but dimly aware
of this present.
I shall still be dimly aware
of the present
when the good things
that I have been expecting
come to pass.
For I shall have formed a habit
of looking behind and ahead,
making it difficult for me
to attend to the here and now.
If, then, my awareness
of the past and future
makes me less aware
of the present,
I must begin to wonder
whether I am actually living
in the real world.
After all, the future
is quite meaningless
and unimportant
unless, sooner or later,
it is going to become
the present.
Thus to plan for a future
which is not going
to become present
is hardly more absurd than
to plan for a future which,
when it comes to me,
will find me “absent,”
looking fixedly
over its shoulder
instead of into its face.
— Alan Watts
°