When living in the future makes enjoying the present hard
This piece is about one of my biggest personal struggles - one I believe many strivers in my generation can relate to. I don’t think I’ll ever get this fully right, but I’m determined to get it more right.
Like many others navigating midlife, I've confronted an uncomfortable truth: the ambitions that drove my professional life for decades no longer pull like they used to. What once felt like meaningful aspirations worthy of sacrifice now seem hollow, leaving me in a sort of vacuum - with a need to reorient myself towards new ambitions and dreams.
This represents more than a motivational challenge; it has intensified a persistent side effect of being highly driven - my struggle to be genuinely content with where I am right now.
I’ve been so preoccupied with the future - next month, next quarter, five years from now - that my mind has been unable to find peace with today. To be clear, it’s different from feeling unhappy. It’s more like a constant restlessness or mental pull towards a desired future state.
Living in the moment has been difficult for as long as I can remember. Over the past twenty years, I've consistently justified this by framing it as an investment in the future that would (eventually) benefit not only me but also my family (a typical male justification from what I’ve observed).
With my shift in priorities over the past few years, and, linked to that, the realisation that what’s behind is more than what’s ahead, "enjoying the journey" feels more critical than ever. But how can those of us in midlife learn to embrace the present when we've been wired to chase the future for decades?
The brighter future that keeps moving
We're taught early on, through cultural and social programming, that success and fulfilment go hand in hand - that satisfaction follows achievement, whether that means achieving a specific title, reaching an income milestone, or building a successful business.
As a consequence, many of us (unconsciously) live by the basic rule that forward progression equals value.
So we work hard, stay in the grind, and strive for more. Some of the mechanisms behind are:
Performance drug. We carry an internal success metric that always remains just out of reach. We quickly adjust to each achievement, experiencing only brief satisfaction before our expectations reset to a higher level. We tell ourselves: “This is good, but I haven't really made it yet." Chasing the next promotion or milestone becomes like a drug that never satisfies.
Comparison. By midlife, the gap between our youthful expectations and reality becomes increasingly apparent. We can’t help but measure ourselves against others who seem more successful or against our past, inflated ambitions. Either way, we come up short, yet the inclination to compare ourselves keeps us in motion.
Identity. Many ambitious midlifers tie their self-worth to their professional accomplishments. When your identity is "I am what I achieve," slowing down becomes terrifying. Being more anchored in the present feels unproductive or like falling behind. So we keep going, even when it no longer feels right.
Some of the conversations I’ve had with high-achievers suggest the pattern runs even deeper. The future-focus may not really be about the future at all. It may rather be anxiety about not being enough in the present.
Whether it is one or the other mechanism that is most prevalent in you, after playing the achievement game for decades, living ahead of ourselves becomes automatic. We've become experts at optimising our lives and careers for the next goal, delaying gratification, and measuring our worth by what we plan to accomplish tomorrow rather than by who we are today.
I recognise this more than I'd like to admit. While I’ve never been chasing one grand goal or purpose, I've always been ambitious. My definition of success has evolved over the years – managing a P&L, climbing the corporate ladder, building a business. Underneath these was a constant: the urge to prove myself and move forward.
Embracing what we already know
By conventional measures, I've done reasonably well, yet I've rarely felt a strong sense of achievement or fulfilment. I’ve envied others who reached a “champagne moment”, the big life-altering milestone. At best, I'd experience temporary satisfaction before shifting my attention to the next step.
Today, I can see more clearly that there is no destination at which the loop ends.
I hear the same from others. We’ve known it for years, yet most of us only truly internalise it late in our 40s or 50s: reaching our ambitions doesn't automatically deliver the fulfilment we expected.
And I’m afraid it, to some extent, has created a disconnect from certain aspects of life. Relationships, fun, hobbies, creative work, etc. I can’t help but wonder whether I have been optimising for achievement so thoroughly that I've lost the ability to simply be – and therefore to be truly content in the present.
With deliberate effort, there are moments, and sometimes even days, when I succeed in keeping my mind mainly in the present. Typically, that happens when I am in a flow state for longer periods or on days when I have meetings (and not too many) that I engage deeply in.
The effects show up fast. Conversations that go deeper. Better sleep. Clearer thinking.
From clarity to action
Ok, but it’s unfortunately not that simple. Like most things in life, there’s a balance to strike.
Striving towards future goals isn’t inherently negative. In fact, under the right conditions, the mental conditioning described above has several positive effects: it cultivates personal drive, direction, and a sense of purpose, and it has served many of us well in building careers, providing for our families, and contributing to individual and societal progress.
There are moments when setting goals, planning, or strategic thinking about the future is exactly what you should be doing. The issue is the automatic drift, not thinking about the future per se. Some people romanticise presence as an excuse to avoid hard prioritisation or difficult self-reflection.
Thus, the point is not to stop thinking about the future. It is to distinguish between productive planning, which is deliberate and balanced, and compulsive future-dwelling, which is involuntary and never resolves.
With that in mind, my approach to striking a healthier balance between living in the present and the future is to find ways to derive more peace and fulfilment from today.
How do I go about that?
A work in progress, of course, but to me it boils down to three reinforcing points:
Reducing my pace. This does not mean abandoning ambition; it’s about redefining it and deliberately creating more slack in my life's overall design. Basically, more hours that aren’t earmarked for work or other defined activities. Busyness pulls my mind into a future-state mode, where I constantly ruminate about what I want to achieve, what I need to do today to get there, and how great life will be as a result. I think it functions as an escape valve when I’m too busy, a vision of the future that balances today’s hardship.
Detaching from my ego. This is a really difficult one because it has to do with identity. To fully embrace the shifts I’m making – discovering new aspirations, creating a life with more slack, striving a little less or differently, etc. – I need to accept that they also affect my narrative, the image I’ve built around who I am and where I’m headed. What matters today is less about climbing and proving and more about doing what I'm good at and enjoy with people who inspire me.
Being grateful. I’ve always hated it when someone told me to be grateful. Grateful for what? Besides, it feels like admitting that my accomplishments have been handed to me rather than created by me. I’m beginning to see it entirely differently. I’ve come to realise how incredibly privileged I am. I’m part of a wider system that provides me with ample opportunities to thrive. There is plenty to be thankful for – and the more I appreciate “what is”, the less I need to rely on the future for meaning. I haven’t turned this into a systematic practice, at least not yet, but I try to remind myself frequently.
You might think I’ve gone all “zen” when you read this. I haven’t. But it feels like this stuff is working - and I’m convinced there is wisdom in much of the foundational thinking and principles that have endured for thousands of years. Maybe a topic for another piece someday …
Realistically, my struggle to be truly content with where I am right now will persist at some level. There's a lot of complex wiring that needs to be reconfigured. But I’m working on it, and that alone feels like progress.
