Monday, May 19, 2008

Living in the Future

I've been doing some thinking lately and I'm realizing that I spend a lot of time living for the future. I think it's a natural tendency for those of use training for endurance events. We have to put ourselves through rigorous training to help us prepare for our next event. In doing so, we are always thinking about our next run and next activity. To that, I just finished putting together the 3 key weekly workouts for my next race in October. I've been finding myself thinking, if I can just get to the end of June, I should be be OK. What the ... I just lost 6 weeks of my life. Instead of living each day to the fullest, I'm thinking of fast forwarding ahead so I can get passed this next race that will not go as good as I'd like. It will get me past my work deadline that has me burning the midnight oil every night. And it will get me by this certification that I'm preparing for. To defend myself, the next 6 weeks of my life are not going to be very fun, but I shouldn't just fast forward through it. It makes me think of the Adam Sandler movie "Click". This is basically what happens to him. He finds himself missing out on all the good things in life, even if they seem mundane.

I've decided that I'm going to try doing a better job living my life more in the now. I want to try get more out of each day. When I got out for speed work or do my next long run or do my next face, I'm going to enjoy it. Let everything sink in rather then blast through it trying to get to my next workout. Life is short enough as it is. There's no need to skip past everything trying to reach the end as quickly as possible.

I'll leave you with this thought today. Do you "live in the now" or "live in the future"?

1 comment:

Michelle Panik said...

I hear ya, Eric. The thing is, delayed gratification and working towards a future goal is thought of as admirable. But when you do it at the expense of the here and how, then you're not carping the diem. Maybe we should just run 5ks and party the night before. :)