Fear of the FutureFear of the Future: How to Stop Fearing the Worst A common fear for people is the fear that they will suffer in the future. People are afraid that their decisions today are made of steel and the steel will some day meld together to form a trap from which they won’t be able to escape. What people don’t see is that this belief is the trap itself. Fear of the future prevents you from being courageous and from expressing your own authenticness here and now. The belief is in fact the trap and it has you entangled right now. Realize that what happened in the past is irrelevant to your future happiness. The saying “it happened in the past” is a favorite one for me because I like to emphasize the word “happened” to distinguish an event in the past from who you are as a person right now. Something “happened” to you, but it does not make you who you are. You are whomever you choose to be. This choice is one of life’s sweetest pleasures. People can feel that they are doing just fine right now and that their lives are pretty good today. Where they feel a lot of unhappiness is when they think about the future. In other words, happiness in the present, but fear of the future in the future. Fear of the future is accompanied with the following types of thoughts: “The future makes me unhappy” or, “I am afraid that I won’t have the money (I will be alone, I will lose my job, etc)” or, for some, it isn’t one thing, but everything: “What don’t I fear about the future?” Fear of the future means that you fear suffering (being in pain) in the future. It is the fear of sustaining loss or damage from which they won’t be able to recover. What they are really saying is, “in the future, things will be permanently worse and there will be nothing I can do to make things better”. This is the boogie man of all thoughts because there is something lurking in the inky blackness of your future and it is preventing you from relaxing and enjoying your life right now as well as preventing you from being hopeful and optimistic about lays ahead. But, it is impossible to know if you are really going to suffer in the future. So, fear of the future is a waste of precious time. You simply don’t have the ability to know it. Your thoughts about the future will only grow and thrive if you water them, so you have to be sure that you are tending to the right plants. In order to make room for the bright bloomers, you first need to pull the weeds from your future. Ask yourself, “Can I know for sure that only prickly weeds of suffering will grow in my garden?” “Can I really, really, really know that that is my future?” Of course you can’t be 100% sure. What do you see when you see your future? Do you see yourself alone and without any friends or family? Do you see yourself without any money and unable to care for yourself? If that was your garden, certainly you would know how to plant some seeds and water them until your patch was green and lush. If you wanted to attract butterflies, hummingbirds, or rabbits, you could go to the library and figure out which plants they like best. Even if you are without a lot of money in the future, and couldn’t afford seeds, you could gently uproot some wild flowers and replant them in your garden. If your present life is filled with thoughts such as, “I had better get married so that I don’t end up alone” or, “I need to keep this job I hate in order to make sure I have enough money when I am too old to work anymore” then fear is driving your life. Your life is controlled by fear and the lens through which you see your life is through the lens of fear. The trick is to change your lens. When you change your thoughts then the lens through which you see your life changes. When you are no longer making decisions from a place of fear, then your life takes on a brilliant sheen of hope and happiness. It’s sort of like once you get rid of all the weeds, you can finally see your garden’s rich soil. Imagine if the thought “In the future, I am going to suffer” didn’t exist. Visualize that weed in your garden and now rip it out of the soil by its roots and toss it in the trash. Imagine how you would feel if that thought wasn’t living in your head, controlling your day-to-day decisions. How do you feel? What does your life look like without the thought of future suffering? Your garden doesn’t know about the future; it grows as though this day and every day will provide it with exactly what it needs to thrive. Your life can grow the same way. Right now, this moment, is a future moment that wasn’t a part of your life two days ago or even two minutes ago. Does the thought, “I am going to suffer” hold true? Does how you feel right now really feel like suffering? You might be unhappy or depressed, but I bet it doesn’t feel like the pain you fear is going to happen. Some of you may say, “The suffering I envision is a long way off. I didn’t mean that I thought I would suffer two days from now.” But, as your garden already knows, there is only today. And, that never changes. That is just a fact of life. Your garden doesn’t decide not to bloom because it fears heavy thundershowers will destroy some of its petals. Each day, your garden grows because that is the essence of its being. Gardens grow; that’s what they do. Today, which is the only reality you have to work with, you are just fine. In reality and in the present moment, you are all right. It’s your imagination about the future that is causing problems. People with a lot of fear about the future often struggle with this. They say, “OK, in this moment I am doing well, but now I am already thinking about suffering again. How do I stop thinking about it so often?” That’s like asking how to get rid of the ugly weeds in your garden. Even preschool children know that to get rid of weeds, all you have to do is yank them up before they have a chance to grow and spread. If you don’t want a future of suffering, then tend to your garden today. If, today, you don’t stop thoughts of fear and suffering, then you are in pain right now. The next time you think, “Why did I do something so stupid?” or “Why did I allow that to happen?”, immediately stop and say, “Weed!” and toss that thought into the trash. That thought is over and the pain that it brought is now in the garbage can. It’s in the past and right now you are just fine. Your future is right now and right now you are just fine. So, what is there to be afraid of? The next time you have a thought of pain and suffering, toss it in the trash. It is then in your past and you are right back to being just fine. Your garden will have only as many weeds in it as you allow. So, just take care of right now. Just work on growing your garden today. Isn’t it a relief to realize that you were wrong about your future?
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