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[Heliman]

I thought since this was the "life advice" thread it would be best put it here.
Technically it's more of a speech than a request for help,but I'm going to submit it to an anthology contest and wanted to hear what the other Know-it-all Mcsassypantses on this forum thought of it first.

Spoiler:  WOAH WALL OF TECKS (click to show/hide)

Even as a Lego-fiddling toddler I never really understood the saying “Man rarely lives in the present.” I look around and see people either haunted by their past or morose with their prospects for the future. While I see these hopes and fears, I can’t commiserate; I live in the present and, for some reason, I can’t stop.

The last time I thought about my past was several moments before I wrote this letter. I was mulling over my total victory of a game of chess I played with my dad on a huge chess board during a cruise. Within seconds of the incipient thought, I felt myself filled with a sense of great pride. It welled up in my chest and made me feel like I could burst with energy. I punched the air to let off my feelings, and it left. All this took place over a few seconds as I sat at my desk, it happens all the time. Memory, feeling, crammed emotion, BAM! Take that, stupid air! I can barely even think about the memory before it’s gone. That’s the majority of experience I have with Reminiscing.

I think about my future more rarely than I do my past, I laid down some basic guidelines as a kid and it hasn’t changed very much since. I want to go to college, and impact the earth in some way, the rest is hazy. Perhaps this is purposely so, because the further I look down my road the more fearful of what that road’s travails I become. If, and heaven forbid, my mind thinks about the end of my future, I feel like my heart was scooped out with an ice-cream scooper. I think Kurt Vonnegut once said “the only difference between children and adults is a deep sense of regret,” but don’t check me on it. After hearing those words, I felt determined never be like that, and felt unable to think too far into my future, for fear of expecting too much.

This leaves me here then, unable to think about the past and in fear of thinking of tomorrow. I ask little of you. Look to your future with a newfound fire in your eyes. Stand with pride atop the precipice of your past as if it were the foundation of a great undertaking. I cannot enjoy such things, but that doesn’t mean that no one else can.

Any ideas, suggestions, comments?

[Heron TSG]

The Epic of Gilgamesh said it first: We will not live forever, but the memories of our deeds can resound gloriously throughout the halls of history in ages long after our own.

[Frajic]

My best technique for not being bothered by past/future/stuff you can't do anything with is trying as hard as you can not to care. Worried about dying one day? Not afraid, don't care, problem solved. Did something you regret? Too bad, too late now, don't care, problem solved. Have a bad conscience because you have such a good life and people in other countries(or even your own) are starving? Well... not caring here would be the lazy, egotistical approach, but it works. Alternatively find a reliable company and give money to charity each month.

[Omegastick]

Interesting read, I'd have to say that I take a similar approach to life. I dee people around me fearful of things that have happened and getting all churned up inside because of things that may happen yet I happily trundle through life always in the present. Don't get me wrong, I have plans for the future (I'm gonna try out for Oxford, Cambridge and Stafford universities then join the RAF if I can get a position) but what's happening now is what matters to me most. I try to give this advice to as many people as possible as it stops me from getting down and keeps me the quirky, spontaneous person I am now.

[Bouchart]

I know it's vogue to say that you should live in the present but that can be very dangerous and short sighted.

[Astramancer]

When I was ~14ish I came up with the proto-version of what is now the philosophy by which I live.  When I was in college, I discovered that it's almost exactly the philosophy that Alcoholics Anonymous espouses.  (which made me wonder how many people I talked to about my philosophy of living thought I was a recovering alcoholic)

It basically boils down to this:

Stuff falls into 1 of 3 categories:
1) Stuff I can't do anything about.
2) Stuff I can do something about.
3) Stuff I can do something about, but don't want to.

If something falls into category 1, then I don't worry about it, because I can't do anything about it.
If something falls into category 2, then I don't worry about it, because I'm doing something about it.
If something falls into category 3, then I don't worry about it, because I don't want it to change.

We took a wide variety of 'stress' tests in my psychology classes, and the professor was always amazed at how low I scored (I never got up into the 'minimal stress' category.

The downside (which took me several years to really realize) is that if I'm not sure how to go about changing something I don't like, then I tend to just accept it and stop looking for a solution.  Fortunately, that's where my wife comes in.