Admittedly, I look in the rearview mirror more than any driver has the right to. Probably more than any other driver you've ever met. What can I say? I'm an addict. This is usually because I’m speeding. By quite a lot. And I’m constantly on the lookout for a cop to appear and write me a very painful ticket. Hence the preoccupation with glancing behind me.
But I've come to realize that I live my life that way too. Way too fast, like I'm rushing somewhere. And way too distracted by what's in the rearview. I'm in a hurry to get to wherever I’m going; some abstract perfect future in which I feel like I have it together more than I do now. And I'm constantly analyzing the thing that I’ve just done and wishing that I’d done it better; constantly worried that I’ve just done something that’s going to hinder me from getting wherever it is I’m headed just as fast as anyone else. I'm preoccupied with reaching the destination just when I should. I'm preoccupied with what's behind me. And, thus, I'm somewhat absent from where I am. Because somehow I've convinced myself that paying attention to those two aspects of this journey is the key to winding up where I want to be.
But frankly, by the time there’s a cop in my rearview mirror, that painful ticket is as good as written. And by the time I can analyze it, the moment’s gone and its effect has already been had on whatever this future is that I’m rushing toward.
So forgive me for making such an entirely un-youthful and un-dangerous statement. But all I can really do to avoid the cop in the rearview is to slow down and drive more carefully. On the road and off of it.
All I can do is to be present in each moment; engaging with my life as it is and taking responsibility for living in such a way that I become the person I want to be. I’ll never get there in a state of permanent distraction with both the past (that I cannot change) and the future (that I feel must measure up, and measure up fast).
I can’t drive my car looking only at the rearview mirror. And I can’t drive my life that way, either. Intentionality is squandered when we apply it to the past, re-scripting and re-scripting in our minds. Once the moment is gone, our mind is the only place that script will ever play out. And it will only serve to frustrate us with actions that we can’t fix now. What a waste!
I have to learn to be intentional with today, because who I am in this moment is the only me I can change. The future is still there waiting for me and the only way I have to shape it is with a series of seemingly small, present-tense choices. And it's time I set my eyes on those.
So all you go-getters can go for it. Because the race for the win doesn’t work for me trying to become someone of substance. Instead I’m slowing down and fixing my gaze on what’s right in front of me. Because all I really need to do well today, is today.
