Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More




My Future Happens Now

Provenance, Rutherford, California, USA

January 20, 2012



"What you got is what you chose. To move on, choose it."  ... 
This essay, My Future Happens Now, is the companion piece to A Future Worth Living Into.



Moving on to whatever's next is easy for me when there's momentum in my life, when there's momentum I can ride, when there's momentum which carries me.

When I've invented a future worth living into, a future which thrills me, a future which excites me, a future which lights me up, a future which drives me out of bed early in the morning and keeps me up late at night, it comes with its own momentum, a momentum which carries me along. So when I'm living from a future I've invented which is worth living into, there's not much I need to do to move on to whatever's next because I move on to whatever's next in (which is to say I'm carried  on to whatever's next by) the process of Life itself. By the time I've committed my canoe to the rapids, I've already made the big decisions needed to get me into the optimal flow position. There's no stopping now. What's more pertinent is I don't want  to stop now. Being in the optimal flow position of Life is the guiding principle of everything I do. In particular, it was my raison d'etre  for riding the momentum which got me here, and from now on it's my raison d'etre for riding the momentum of a future worth living into.

Having ridden the momentum which got me here, actually isn't the topic of this conversation. From now on riding the momentum of a future worth living into, isn't the topic of this conversation either. Neither is moving on to the next thing when I'm thrilled and excited and lit up about whatever's going on right now. Rather, the topic of this conversation is moving on to the next thing when I'm neither  thrilled nor  excited nor  lit up about whatever's going on right now. In such times, change can't come fast enough for my liking. These are the times when I'll trade anything  for whatever's going on right now ... anything. In times like these I can't move on to whatever's next by riding the momentum. Why is this? Simple: it's because in the times when I'm neither thrilled nor excited nor lit up about what's going on right now, there is no momentum. And when there's no momentum in my life, it's never consistent with a life I love.

In the absence of momentum when I'm neither thrilled nor excited nor lit up about what's going on right now, I move on to whatever's next through pure avoidance, through sheer escapism. And even when I can avoid whatever's going on right now, even when I can escape whatever's going on right now and move on to something preferable, it only brings a momentary respite. Sooner or later, whatever it was I couldn't put far enough and fast enough behind me, looms up to be confronted and dealt with again. It seems at best I can only temporarily delay confronting it. But I can never delay confronting it enough, or put it far enough behind me that it doesn't ever loom up to be confronted again. The dragon simply lies in wait for me. And oh boy! does that dragon have all the patience in the world, or what?!  It will wait and wait and wait ...   It will wait for me forever. It will wait and wait and wait until I boldy and audaciously turn to face it, confront it, and finally unceremoniously slay it.

If I've learned anything at all about what it takes to live into a future of my own creation, it's that I can't do it (which is to say Life disallows  me doing it) as an avoidance of, or as an escape from, a present I'm living now which I don't want to be living. I finally figured out Life has no interest  in what I want and don't want (as Werner Erhard may have said).

If I've learned anything at all about what it takes to move on  from a present I'm living now which I don't want to be living, into a future of my own creation, it's I can only move on when I have the present I'm living now which I don't want to be living, be totally OK with me.



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