ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

August 23rd, 2018

This is a phrase we hear every once in a while. 

There’s a problem with it.

While it indicates a good direction, a positive direction, it devalues the present and idealizes the future.    The only thing that is as steady as ‘onwards and upwards’ implies is the rising of the sun each day.  (and even that doesn’t always happen depending on where in the world you are.)

Idealizing the future further ingrains a notion that the present is less useful and less desirable. 

Compared to the present, however, the future doesn’t really exist at all.  It is a phantom.  An idea. A dream. 

These can be good and useful things.  But only if action is taken with such things in mind. 

Action can only happen in the present.

Consistently dedicate the present to the hopes, dreams and ideas of the ‘future’, and the future will not come. Instead, the present will slowly morph into those ideas, hopes and dreams.  There’s a a subtle but important difference.

Progress on any front will not ever be as consistent as our actions and efforts.

So.

Is it better to look up at some idealized sky where a paradise might lurk in the clouds?

Or.

Concentrate inwards, compressing hope and dreams and ideas into the first action, the next action that can be done. right. now.