The Trouble With Living in the Moment

A lot of people advocate living in the "now". No time like the present, right? WRONG! Like everything else, living in the moment should be done in moderation. You should still have some concern for the future and learn from mistakes in your past.

Note that you can also look in either direction whilst being at the "now" marker. Source

If there were ever clearer an example of this, it's a documentary I saw called Buskers about the lives of street performers. You know street performers, the nearly-homeless, partially talented, moderately entertaining beggars. I don't want to attack street performers but I will use them as an example.

Buskers/Street Performers are a group of people who live exclusively in the present. There's no plan for the future, there's little regard for their past. Every time the documentarian asked a performer about their past, out came the sad clown. It was all about broken families and continuing that pattern. Relationships can't be maintained because they desperately crave the adoration of strangers more than the love of familiars.

Source...but don't go to this site, it's run and frequented by the living embodiment
of Axe body spray mating with an energy drink. 

When asked about retirement or what happens even so far as when you turn 45, these fire-eaters and flip-abouts (what I call the Cirque Du Soleil type acrobats), and jugglers, and puppeteers break into nervous laughter and exclaim how they hope to be discovered by some Madonna type or point to a jug of strychnine they plan to drink.

But if you really want to make a busker cry, ask how his/her romantic relationships are going. Every single one of the people in the documentary had a sorrow-filled story about how they chose the life of street performance over a love life and children. I would say, "well that's symbolic of a workaholic lifestyle," but for the most part, they aren't innovating new tricks or moves, they aren't creating new forms of art, they're rehashing the same tricks day in and day out.

I admire their desire to entertain people, but it really boils down to an illusion that they aren't beholden to a corporate master and thus, live free, despite making the equivalent of $12/hour on a GOOD day. That's the issue with the "live in the now" mentality, it's truly an avoidance of priorities and personal growth by supplanting these universal human truths with the pseudo-romantic notion of "true freedom". There's a fine line between freedom and dereliction.

Yeah, this guy is contributing to the Collective Unconscious and has a sustainable business model. Source

I'm not attacking street performers, I'm using them as a tragic example of sticking to an imaginary, intangible dogma. Be flexible in life.Gather a variety of useful, applicable skills. Don't disregard the past as you can learn from it. Just as concern for the future can help you achieve more things. But also, live in the moment when it is appropriate to do so, like in movies, at concerts, at comedy shows, having a well crafted meal, in other words, when enjoying an experience. The best analogy I can think of for this state-of-mind is a guy with a child who wears a condom when cheating on his wife. See? He learned from his past mistakes, is still living in the moment, but is taking care to protect his future. That's a solid analogy, call me, SAT writers. 

Enjoy your weekend moment by moment then plan for your future whilst reflecting on your past.