Back to the Future?

Silverleaf 11 Comments

If you could fast forward to a specific date in the future, when would it be?

I’ve thought about this question from time to time, but I’ve never really come up what I felt was a significant enough event.

I can think of years and dates and events from the past, mine and the world’s, that I would like to visit. But the future? Nothing.

Maybe it’s because I learned from Doc Brown that you really shouldn’t mess with the future. I don’t want to know, because knowing would prompt me to want to fix things. And I know not to interfere. Because Back to the Future. And not fixing things would be harder than fixing them.

It becomes a very complicated question.

So, searching for inspiration, I asked my eight-year-old son the question.

His answer?

“My birthday. No, wait! Halloween. No, Tuesday. Definitely Tuesday.”

Why Tuesday?

Because I will be at my bookbinding class and, consequently, his favourite babysitter will be hanging out with him.

Simple.

Simple question, simple answer.

It is the one day he is currently looking most forward to.

Such is the purity of spirit, and purity of mind, of a child. We could all learn a lot from this way of thinking.

Talk about living in the moment.

It’s like the coupons he got in his stocking this year: there were a few granting him amnesty from changing the sheets on his bed each week, and a few more getting him out of his chores.

We tried recommending that he spread them out throughout the year. A little treat every now and then. But no, he is using them back to back…to back.

I sigh because of course when he cashes them in, I’m the one doing the chores.

But there is a certain purity to this thought process as well.

He is living in the moment. Fully present. Seizing the day. Looking to the simple pleasures in life.

Something my adult brain can’t apparently grasp. I guess it’s something I need to work on because even after this wonderful child-led epiphany, I can’t think of a date I’m so excited about that I’d head off to it immediately if given the chance.

Or perhaps I’m selling myself short; maybe I really am in the moment. So in the moment that I don’t even want to fast forward a few days. I’m here, now, where I’m supposed to be. And I’m happy with that.

But if I could just have a taste of Maine in the summer, I wouldn’t say no.

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. Enjoying your moment « From One Crazy Life To Another
  2. Just before the Suddenlies | A Teacher’s Blog
  3. Prayer of a young soul | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
  4. DP Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Sabethville
  5. A Reason For No Daily Prompt Today | The Jittery Goat
  6. Living In The Moment – Creating A Future | Shrine of Hecate – Ramblings of a New Age Witch
  7. Escapism | dandelionsinwind
  8. This Moment | My Little Avalon
  9. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Incidents of a Dysfunctional Spraffer
  10. Fast Forward to the Future: A Haiku; Saturday, January 11, 2014 | LisaRosier.com
  11. Jumping forward in time | Post Departum Depression
  12. A future without chronic illness | Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me
  13. The Recovery Time Machine | THE OVERCOMING
  14. The Future | Kate Murray
  15. daily prompt: fast forward | aimanss…
  16. S. Thomas Summers | Godzilla is My Writing Coach
  17. Where To? | Flowers and Breezes
  18. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward « Mama Bear Musings
  19. Fast Forward | Momma Said There’d Be Days Like This
  20. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice
  21. Past the Hurdles « Mon Cache
  22. Fast Forward to Waking up From Surgery | My Play Nook
  23. Hope to Reality | meanderedwanderings
  24. A World of Humanity | all my likes
  25. “Butterflies are Free” | Hope* the happy hugger
  26. Daily Prompt : Forward | Chronicles of a Public Transit User
  27. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Finding Life
  28. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
  29. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow… | LenzExperiments
  30. Fast Forward | A mom’s blog
  31. Running deer (Forward) | photo potpourri
  32. Fast Forward to February | Heart And A Half
  33. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Under the Monkey Tree
  34. Fast Forward Amish Race | Lisa’s Kansa Muse ~ Dreamy abstraction in a 100 year old Four Square Farm House
  35. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Petite Powerhouse
  36. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | “The Ish,” presented by the Bohemian Rock Star
  37. FORWARD….March!! | Active Army Wife
  38. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Heron There & Everywhere
  39. Fast Forward | Raspberry’s Daydreams
  40. It’s My re-Birthday! | Haiku By Ku
  41. Daily Prompt Challenge ~ Forward | soletusknow
  42. Life Love Lily
  43. DP: >> | Scorched Ice
  44. Twenty-seven year bore | shame
  45. Tomorrow | Life is great
  46. Fast Forward | johnny ojanpera
  47. To rewind or fast forward… | From diapers and tutus to meetings and boardrooms
  48. Fate | Daily Prompt | Word Disorder
  49. Evidence | The Land Slide Photography
  50. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | A Clueless Monkey’s Thoughts
  51. Fast Forward | The Nameless One
  52. “Pee here now.”/Daily Prompt | I’m a Writer, Yes I Am
  53. No words. | Dreams to Reality !
  54. Daily Prompts: Forward | A Life That is Full and Felt | Gradual Thought
  55. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward. Must I? | Mishe en Place
  56. My future in Friday Night Lights | The Flavored Word
  57. The needs of the small people | TJ Barker
  58. 2015 « ayimas
  59. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | I really just pretend to know stuff
  60. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | A Room of One’s Own
  61. I Am Enough | sunshine in winter
  62. A Distorted Mind. | W.T.F.
  63. Why I Can’t Enjoy Sundays | Because Dragons Don’t Phase Me
  64. Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | Occasional Stuff
  65. Prompted Ponderings – ‘Fast Forward, Daily Prompt’ | Hemsleberrious
  66. B.O.G.O. Part 2~ The Frozen North | The Fiction of Michael R. Wilson
  67. Forward in time? | Willow’s Corner
  68. Keep Moving Forward | The Christian Gazette
  69. Always… | Words ‘n Pics…
  70. Heroism and Moving Forward.. | Life Objectified.
  71. Apocalypse | vic briggs
  72. Daily Prompt: Pictures Showing Fast Forward! | Daily Prompt & Blogging Progress
  73. Fast Forward | The untold, the unsaid…
  74. Good Prompt Today! Daily Prompt: Fast Forward | King Pollux the Writer
  75. Is Cruelty To Animals Increasing? Fast Forward To Utopia | lynnesartandsoul
Advertisements

11 thoughts on “Back to the Future?”

  1. How can you say your little boy is living in the moment when he wants it to be next Tuesday? He’s a kid! He can’t wait to grow up, for a holiday, or a babysitter, or some OTHER time. I think that’s part of what it means to be a kid — that wonderful anticipation. At a certain point, we know how the stories turn out (that’s much later, later on even than you are, mom!) YOU’RE living in the moment! The big danger is not living in the future…it’s living in the past.

    Reply

    • Thank you for your perspective. It IS a struggle for me to live in the present, but mostly because of anxiety issues. Definitely something I’m working on.
      But you’re right, too, I often tell my son to stop living for things in the future, to just enjoy today. To some extent, he was sort of finally applying that. But also, maybe it was less of a being present, more of a pure enjoyment of something simple, which is nice too.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

w
Cancel

Connecting to %s