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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Philosophy on Facebook # 39 – Time Zones

Wow it has been almost a whole month since I have had an opportunity to write another Philosophy on Facebook post. Only a couple more days of school and then I will have more time to devote to this kind of stuff but summer will still be kind of busy for me unfortunately. Oh well. Time will always continue and life goes on. Hey that sounds like a pretty good philosophy topic so I think that's what this post shall be about.

It is pretty a well known fact that time goes on. You might have been told in the past that life will continue regardless of what happened in order to kind of perk you up and look towards the future. As far as I know there is no way to control the passage of time. Time is a human quantified aspect of life. Time is pretty much defined as by Google the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past. This flow of past, present, and future is vital to the discussion of this post. Because time can’t be controlled like there isn’t any time travel or a watch like in the movie Clock Stoppers, we are the ones who need to adjust to keep with the changing times. Learning to adjust to the environment and keeping a healthy balance of living in the present, past, and future will help you live a successful like style.

What I mean by living in certain time zones is that you can be preoccupied about a certain time period. Living in the past is essentially looking back in time. It is important to look back because it is a way of preparation for the future and reflection. The reflections come from analyzing your past actions and the results that occurred because of them. A major reflection comes from your mistakes and learning from them. If you look back on them then you can prevent yourself from making the mistake again in the future and preventing the vicious cycle of repeating your errors from happening. As the saying goes, if people don’t learn from their mistakes, then history is doomed to repeat itself. There are negatives to living too long in the past though. Reminiscing and memories play a vital role in our lives but without living here and now you can’t get on with your life. Another aspect of living in the past comes in the form of coping and learning to get over things that happen. It is essential to overcome all the obstacles we face because it is inevitable that tragedy will strike everyone in some way. Things will not always go your way but being able to get back up once you’re knocked down allows you to improve the current situation. The faster that you can recover the quicker you can devote your time and resources to your present and future ventures increasing their chances of succeeding.

This brings me to the present and living here and now. This aspect of life is essential because between looking towards the past and future you need to stop every once in a while and take a moment to look around at all the great stuff in life, especially before it passes you by. These words of wisdom were passed down to me from the wise Cartman from South Park on the Super Phun Tyme episode. The present is also important because it is where all your actions take place and where you always live, at least physically even though you can mentally live somewhere else like where you are looking towards the other time zones. Living here and now mentally means you can really weigh the outcome of your actions limiting mistakes and making sure what you are currently doing is the right thing. The way you do this is correlating between the past (using your intuition and prior knowledge to make sure what you are doing is a good idea) and the future (predicting how your actions will affect you down the road). It also prevents a phenomenon that I like to call “auto-pilot” where you go through life basically a zombie and your actions just correlate to your normal habits like doing what you normally do and there isn’t any conscious thinking about your actions. This happens a lot when I am driving while thinking about something else and I will just drive straight home even though I may have someone else in the car I need to drop off. Living now can have some negative impacts however. While it can be more enjoyable because you can get immediate satisfaction from your actions, you need to take into consideration the other time zones. For instance, living too much in the present can cause regrets in the future like buying a Ferrari or Lambo will bring happiness now but will probably hurt you down the road like when you plan to retire.

The final time zone is the future. The future is basically related to moving on and it is where you plan for your life down the road. Doing such a thing can be kind of hard to do because it is a very abstract topic. It is much easier to see how your actions will affect you with immediate reactions compared to how it will affect your life a year from now. Nonetheless, it is important to do in order to succeed like planning to do well in school in order to accomplish your dream of getting a high paying job. While the past is reflecting and the present is doing, the future is all about planning. If you are successful at living in the future then you can be ahead of the curve. By accurately predicting and scheduling what will happen, it allows you to be more likely to succeed in those events. It is also in a way preparation because it readies you for your future ventures and makes sure you meet all prerequisites. Looking too much in the future though can cause you to only think about what you CAN do and doesn’t actually allow you to DO anything so you need to come back to the present to carry out your planned course of action.

Throughout all of these different time zones, there are a few keys to success that while don’t guarantee success, they greatly improve the chances of you experiencing it. Number one is staying optimistic. You need to believe that in the future things will get better and it greatly improves the chances that it will. Hope is a very influential aspect of life that I might end up doing a post or podcast on but you need to have it. Losing it basically means you have given up and will no longer make any attempts to improve your current situation. You also need to learn from your mistakes that happened in the past. I can’t stress how important this is because you can’t move on if you are stuck doing the same things over and over again. Finally you always need to try your best. This relates to the present and always giving 100% with whatever you are currently working on. The greater the effort you put into something the more you will get out of it. The right blend of the past, present, and future is huge in making life the way you want it to be and as successful as possible.

-Allan Nicholas

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