More on the complexities of the fear of your future self. In life, sometimes we feel the need to fulfill our immediate desires at the cost of our future goals. Living for the moment means that we can not reconcile ourselves to our future identity, whether it be in a home that we purchase after planning and saving, or a retirement after sacrificing our monthly spending for a future return. There are also visible indicators of abandoning future self by the great amount of credit we have accumulated on cards that satisfy us for the moment and do not secure future wealth. Our lives are lived in the blatant admission that our future years will be worse than our past and that the best and the beautiful are behind us. There is a tendency to long for yesterday where there seemed to be more security in a life where cares were lighter and responsibilities were less. We feel that a future identity with a spouse will only amplify the present pain and all thoughts are lost of any greater future existing so we seek solace from friends whose affinity, like a drug, gives us the attention and satisfaction that we feel is missing in what we have interpreted as a doomed relationship. We blame ourselves for our past decisions and see no hope in recovering from the hurt it caused. We then deny ourselves the lesson of the teachable moment and instead of gaining wisdom in overcoming the obstacles, we compete with others for sympathy. The social capital we find significant in our lives comes more from a response to struggles than the victory in achievement. More than that, we’ve made the hurt into something of a demon that we are convinced will interrupt our future progress which will only result in future hurt. It is all part of the complexities of future guilt and skewed vision of our future self. Future guilt will lead some to greater sadness as the years advance and unredeemed time is lost. Feeling remorse for what selfishly had been squandered on what ultimately was pride, the guilt is real instead of imagined as it was in the past. The fruits of life in the moment can lead one to bear the bitterness of a broken home, a broken marriage, and a broken life. Sadly, the counsel of friends who support the hope of the invested future self is not heeded, leaving the true friend with a great sense unrequited love. Love, of course, is the attitude that seeks the other’s best interest and highest good; it thinks the best and does the best for the other. The moral of the story is to seek the counsel of others who love you. Find the value of investing in the future of your church, family, home, marriage, and children. See the value in past failures as a challenge to future victory, not a future guilt that is based on a failed past. If you are in a position to live the success that others would aspire to have, live it convincingly. There can be no greater ambition and no greater satisfaction than to live in accordance with biblical principles and godliness.
Monthly Archives: March 2018
Inspiration to Fathers: Old Romanian Folklore
Inspiration for FATHERS. Consider the lesson of Făt-Frumos. He is a hero of Romanian folklore, who like the prince charming of popular fairy tales, is of a knightly disposition and noble character. He possesses such essential knightly attributes as courage, purity, justness, physical and spiritual strength, cleverness, passion, and unshakable love. Făt-Frumos is also wise in the practical application of multiple disciplines, giving him an almost god-like renown as a worker of miracles. He has abilities that are eclipsed only by his total commitment to honor and the keeping of his word. In some tales, he is so precocious as to be able react emotionally by showing compassion early in life. In fact, it is believed that he wept before he is born.
Famous to the legend of Făt-Frumos is the famous crossroad he encounters early in his life. At this crossroad, he is given the option to choose between two puzzling choices. When considering which to take, he is approached by an old woman who counsels him regarding which road he should take. Her counsel is as confusing as the roads themselves. She tells young Făt-Frumos to, “Take the road to the right where you will encounter hardship. If you take the road to the left, you will encounter hardship as well.” The beauty of this story is to understand that life will have hardship no matter which road you take. Don’t expect the easy road to be the better road. Roads are lessons to test and prove the worth of our faith. Rough roads, like streams, present us with a hope of a peaceful end. What would happen if honor, integrity, honesty, fortitude, courage, resolve, and strength was personified by a father? It would mean that when caught between two choices, any path that is fill with sorrow and hardship will be traversed with success if our character remains intact. Do our lives reveal the value we place in our faith–a faith in a Kingdom greater in value than a pearl of great price? We could be our children’s SUPERHERO!
Complexity of the Psychology of Future Guilt
New thinking is developing regarding the Psychology of Your Future Self. It touches on the argument that I have made for the psychology of future guilt. There are some who display such a transciency that no prospects of a future are seen in their present plan of action. A friend who loves as if he/she is ready to pull out of life and move on in a moment’s notice, falls under what I feel is a false understanding of their future self. Expectations they feel do not apply to others, nor feel applies to themselves produce this transciency. It’s not necessarily “living for the day,” but more of a lack of vision based on such things as a past disappointment that anticipates a future disappointment. A tendency to limit our future expectations can come from failed expectations we have put on older, and once respected adults in our lives who have utterly dismantled what we perceived maturity to be, and what was ideally expected to be successful, virtuous, loving, flawless, and decent. This burden has crossed my mind that some of you may be at a point in your life when you are walking the fence when it comes to what you see in your future. You are at a crossroads in your life. You are thinking about the worthiness of continuing on as you have been and seeing a future with little hope, or a change with new aspirations with only faith to see it. It’s like, you can pull up your stakes and be gone at any time. It takes just as much faith and attention to concentrate on improving our present attitudes to improve our future lives with our current relationships. Actions and words can betray us often. We begin to focus on ourselves which causes the apprehension of separation to lessen when we interpret others as “holding us back.” “Liberation” is a rationalization for our actions. True guilt is most generally the result of succumbing to a misguided interpretation of our future self.