This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.
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Find yourself worrying about the future all day? Do you worry about things that might happen, and get stressed about things you can’t control?
Lots of us do. But worrying about the future is preventing us from living in the present. We’ll learn how to stop worrying about the future and enjoy more of today.
Why You Worry About the Future
When you worry too much on the future, you create anxiety, tension, stress, and worry.
Here’s an example of worrying about the future: You have a pile of bills due next week and are consumed with worry about how you will be able to make ends meet. Instead of dwelling in this future situation, you try to make a plan for how to pay off the bills.
Even if your plan doesn’t solve the issue — as that may not always be possible — spending the meantime panicking creates extra negativity, exhausts your mental and emotional energy, and prevents you from being present. You are gaining nothing from the anxiety.
How to Stop Worrying About the Future: Be Present in Every Moment
The future only exists in projections. When you are present, you experience the only moment that is real — Now. Presence is the only antidote to the control of the ego and the pain-body.
- Much of our pain and distress is self-imposed, from feeding into the pain-body’s negativity and the ego’s power to fill our minds with worry about the past and future.
Being present does not change your external circumstances. It’s not a magic cure. But it does make you better at dealing with the future. When we face hardships in life, being present allows us to tackle them moment by moment. Added stress from our ego-controlled, worried thoughts only makes the obstacles seem more overwhelming. When we are present, we have more mental capacity to face these challenges.
If you are wishing that a situation were different in some way, or you are worrying about some future event, then your thoughts are in the past, future, or some hypothetical scenario — and you are not in the present.
Accepting the present means to acknowledge that it already exists, and that no amount of wishing, complaining, or worrying about the future will change this current moment. This is how you stop worrying about the future.
Does this seem easier said than done? Presence is a simple concept but is not necessarily an easy practice. Most of us are in the habit of letting our egos run the show, so keeping our focus on the present will be like a muscle you strengthen with time and practice.
The power of Now is the power of being present. Presence is the only way to feel peace and true fulfillment. We’ve explored how not being present makes us unhappy and unfulfilled, and how our ego uses thoughts and emotions to prevent us from being present. Now that we’ve identified the problem, we’re going to talk about how you can become more present, and how it will impact your life.
Resisting the Now Creates Pain
Being present and stopping your worry about the future does not change your external circumstances. In fact, life consists of cycles of success and failure; each one is a necessary precedent of the other. These cycles can last from a few hours to years, and are part of the inevitable impermanence of everything in life. (There are also cycles of highs and lows when it comes to your physical energy, productivity, and creativity.)
When you are present, you must accept the lows as much as the highs as part of the reality of the Now. Why fight a cycle that is inevitable?
Much of the pain you experience when worrying about the future or resisting the present is self-inflicted because you’re not accepting the reality of the present moment. The circumstances of your life — your “life situation” — can be unpleasant, but begrudging them does nothing to change the situation. When you resist the Now you are only creating negativity and unhappiness for yourself.
- Negativity manifests as irritation, anger, depression, despair, and resentment.
- This resistance even creates physical tension in your body. (e.g. Do you ever feel stiffness in your back and shoulders from stress? Or clench your jaw or grind your teeth without realizing it?)
When you feel resistance and negativity build in you, especially, as you worry about the future, observe your worry. Put your attention on it, acknowledge it, and then drop it.
- If you can’t drop it, then accept it. Don’t resist it. Accept that you’re worrying about the future, and avoid or judging or blaming yourself for that reaction.
- If you can’t drop it, you can also practice making yourself “transparent” to the irritation. Imagine the solidity of your body dissolving, and allow the future worry to pass right through you. Break down the “wall” inside you that the irritant (e.g. a loud noise, a rude comment, an inconvenient circumstance) is bumping up against, and let it pass through you.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Power of Now summary :
- Why you feel pain from the past, and how to get rid of it
- How to be more present and stop worrying about the future
- The 8 key ways to achieve mindfulness
