“Disrespect for the future is a subtly poisonous disrespect for self, and forces us, paradoxically enough, to live in the past.”
Opened my all-time favorite book about how we, as self-aware beings, perceive time, Time and the Art of Living just now and Robert Grudin had this to say on the page before me:
"VII.20 Every time we postpone some necessary event‚ whether we put off doing the dinner dishes till morning or defer an operation or some difficult labor or study, we do so with the implication that present time is more important than future time (for if we wished the future to be as free and comfortable as we wish the present to be, we would perform necessary actions as soon as they prove themselves necessary). There is nothing wrong with this, as long as we know what we are doing, and as long as the present indeed holds some opportunity more important than the task we delay. But very often our decision to delay is less a free choice than a semiconscious mechanism, a conspiracy between our reasoning awareness and our native dislike of pain. The result of this conspiracy is a disconcerting contradiction of will; for when we delay something, we simultaneously admit its necessity and refuse to do it. Seen more extensively, habitual delays can clutter our lives, leave us in the annoying position of always having to do yesterday's chores. Disrespect for the future is a subtly poisonous disrespect for self, and forces us, paradoxically enough, to live in the past."
While I wish I was insightful enough to have written the words above, at least I'm sensible enough to recognize how true they are. Now as to applying them in my life NOW...
