‘Right Here, Right Now’- Maybe Troy Bolton was on to something
I remember being in elementary school, specifically primary 3, and just having the fleeting thought of where the primary 6 students went after they graduated. I was told later that ‘where’ was something called secondary school. My brain could not comprehend what that was and how it looked because it was focused on the then and now. I wasn’t worried about my lack of awareness of what was coming next long term. Knowing that I would be in primary 4 next year was enough to soothe any future thoughts I had and even then, I didn’t bother myself with those thoughts a lot.
I am recounting this experience because I miss that childlike energy of not being over consumed with thoughts of what could be in the long-term or even medium-term. As a child, the future seemed so expansive and full of possibilities that subconsciously it felt futile to try to define it. I crave this way of being that once was because it feels like I have now been conditioned to continuously look to and over plan for the future. News flash for someone who experiences anxiety that conditioning has often wrecked my sanity and peace.
I had started typing the above three days ago, but a work conversation triggered me so here I am completing what I started. Those that deeply know me are aware that my organisation and planning skills are not a badge of honour to me. They simply symbolise the stringiest coping mechanisms I have had to take on to navigate my anxiety and being neurodivergent. Framing these characteristics that I was rewarded and affirmed for has been a breath of fresh air I never knew I needed. While these coping mechanisms have gotten me through many intense situations, they have often encouraged my preoccupation with what was to come.
At the moment I am trying to be more focused on the now, how I feel and think at the moment because that is what matters the most. The problem is a lot of the spaces I find myself in are not conducive to the right here and right now. In that triggering work conversation, I felt like my answer to ‘where do you see yourself in a year’s time’ was met with disapproval and unsatisfaction. I had to remind myself that how the person felt about my response to taking it one step at a time was their personal problem. But I would be lying if I did not say that I was rocked a bit and pushed into a headspace of overactive planning for the future. As much as I am trying to return to that more childlike perception of time it is difficult. Unlike when I was eight it feels like a more elaborative path for my future has been constructed for me and pushed into my mind by society.
It is a difficult one, but I make the effort daily to remind myself that all I truly have is in the now. That does not mean I do not often fantasize about what could be and obsess over what was, it just means I have made the conscious effort to spend more time focused on the present. And in doing so I have begun reconstructing how I perceive the future and my relationship to it as I am trying to let go of what I think next year could look like or even 6 months from now. I really just want to have the youthful gaze of what is to come as this big expansive space that I can co-create with as I move through the here and now.
