Our species is unique in its obsession with the future (worry) and too often enslaved to the past (regret).

For better or worse these obsessions likely proved to be highly influential selection factors.  Those who were obsessed with tomorrow were more likely to be prepared for it and more likely to have existed long enough to have offspring wired and brought up to have this same obsession.  Those who ruminated on the past were less likely to repeat failures and more likely to learn from them.

But at what cost? 

I would suggest the price has been our inability to live in the present, to experience our NOW without labeling, comparing, and planning.

This is a tricky point to make because I do not want to be misunderstood to suggest that either of these traits are innately evil.  After all, studying the past and thinking forward into the future has resulted in the advancement of our civilization and quality of life.

As with most things, what is the question is degree, and thus the question of obsession.  Obsession is often defined as “an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind.”  It is the “preoccupying” and the “intruding” that we must guard against.  

We must own the reality that our ability to think on the past and the future are tools that nature selected for us.  These are wonderful, powerful tools, just as a hammer is a wonderful, powerful tool, and yet not everything in life is a nail.

Knowing our proclivity to obsess and overindulge in the use of our natural talents, we must learn to teach ourselves anew how to balance learning and planning with living in the NOW.  It is here that meditation becomes an invaluable tool.

YESTERDAY has ceased to exist. Learn from it but live beyond it.

TOMORROW is a hope. Prepare for it but do not count on it.

NOW is all you have. Never let it be a slave to what WAS, but IS not, or what may BE, but is not YET.

Balancing hindsight with foresight while still leaving ample mental space to simply observe the NOW is not easy, but it is worthy.  It may help to remember that all of life is not a rush to a destination.

Arriving at a destination on the floor is no more the point dancing than getting to the end of a song is the point of music.  Enjoy the dance.