Living Day to Day

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It seems about two years ago I made a choice to live to be more in the moment, and try not to obsess over my long term goals. It lead to a fairly spectacular year of fun, travelling, new friendships, relationships, and new experiences. I’ll never forget the glory of that year, and only wished I had done it years earlier. I really had a great time.

I’m starting to feel more though like I need to find some real direction again. I wonder if the sum of those many awesome experiences will add up into something more? Honestly I think now I’d like to settle into some sort of career groove and set up shop somewhere. A long-distance relationship complicates matters…as we’ll have to decide how that would end up (she lives in Vancouver, and I’m out on the Saskatchewan prairies).

I guess there must be a balance of living day to day / in the moment and moving towards longer term goals right? I look at my friends and it seems most of them have had such clear direction throughout life. I kinda have some regret my own life didn’t turn out that way.

Heres my stats:

32 year old male
Long distance relationship
Healthy
Employed Teacher
No assests other than Car
Savings

This is such a rambly post…I guess I’m looking for a bit of validation tonight that I’m doing things right. I feel fairly content in life, though not entirely satisfied. I’d like for once to have a five year plan. Does that happen anymore? I tend to live year by year / day by day.

2

Its a tuffy Quasi. Needless to say living in the moment is where its at. Congratulations!

But having savings, retirement, etc., means there may be a tomorrow. Its a tough juggling act, no?

3

Agreed. I am sick and it’s cold outside so I’m a bit on the bleh side of things tonight.

4

I think what’s important is to find a balance between “preparing for the future” and “spending so much time preparing for the future that you forget you’re living now”. My own planning is more of a decisions tree; I’ve been berated for such things as having as my professional goal “be happy” (what?) and not having an exact plan of where I wanted to be in X years (weeeell, either in a project with human beings, or between projects in my house, but uhm… my workplace is officially listed as “anywhere in the world”).

5

Someone once told me to “Prepare like you’re going to live forever and live like you’re going to die tomorrow.”

6

Most of your friends probably don’t have as much direction as you think they do. But they know they want to have direction, so they pick one and try to stick to it. It’s one way of going through life and, as you have discovered, there are others. But no matter what you are doing now, keep that future in your view because you will arrive there sooner than you think, especially if you don’t plan.