Partially thanks to my weird desire to belt out songs at random like a Disney princess (but not wanting to mangle the words), I’ve been finding and jotting down song lyrics in notebooks as well as inspirational quotes. I had tons of those things once before, but they had no rhyme or reason to them, and because I was using them as a crutch and a distraction at some point, I threw them all out.

I figured this time around, I would write mostly song lyrics and fill the gaps between each song with quotes. Many in the first book were on dreams, and facing fear (two things I REALLY needed to wrap my mind around to get me feeling competent again). But then I found some quotes–brainyquote.com is just amazing for topical searches and fun stuff–regarding the future.

As I started sifting through the quotes, I noticed some trends regarding philosophy and psychology in regards to the future. One train of thought was along the lines of “don’t worry about the future, stick to the present” while the other was more akin to “the present isn’t really real because we’re constantly in motion time-wise, so look to your future”

Probably half of it also mentioned “think of the good stuff in your past but don’t live there, because you must be in the here and now OR look to the future.” But I digress.

It made me wonder what’s really the best option of focus, though. I mean, I feel like you can’t make a move on your future if you don’t have a clue what you’re doing now (so to speak). On the other hand, just going through the days in the present without a future plan doesn’t feel like much of a good option either.

And I could argue that’s what those months of my just “existing” were like from the past year.

I suppose the context of many of the quotes is more about dwelling and worry, especially in regards to the future or the past. But you can dwell on the present and overlook the things that would brighten your future, too, right?

I am starting to feel like this is one of those revolving questions, something you’re asked in Philosophy 101: focus on the present or prepare for the future? I wonder what I could answer in that regard, and I’ve wrapped my brain in tangled knots most of the day contemplating it.

At least writing this question out and giving it one last deep think for the evening might let me get to sleep sooner rather than later.

So now, I pose it to you–Which is the better approach to life in the long run: to focus on the present OR focus on your future?

Floor’s yours…