One of the hardest things to decipher in life is what it’s going to take to get from where we are NOW to where we want/deserve/need to go and be – eventually … i.e., how to fill that GAP.
It’s a HUGE GAP of many proportions, and the “End Game” seems so indeterminately far away.
Besides the problem of NOW, we have the problem of everything that went BEFORE now, and then the problem of a fictitiously idealized future – wherein everything we want / need / neglect / postpone / defer suddenly gets done or fortuitously becomes either unimportant / irrelevant or unnecessary.
Then there’s the problem of the foreboding REALITY CHECK: If we somehow presciently suspected how much we would actually have to hustle and how much we would have to give up to get what we want – or think we “Deserve” – it would seem overwhelming.
Let’s start with NOW. The problem with NOW is this:
NOW … just happens to lie completely unscripted between everything else.
It lies between rising and retiring …
… Between meals …
… Between phone calls …
… Between crises …
… Between cups of coffee …
… Between … well, almost everything.
And more often than we would care to admit or have brought to our attention, we treat it as a “floating” period … something just to be filled by “BEING” before the next “happening” or other intervention on our radar. Anything not pressing or distressing can wait an indeterminate time – at least for NOW – until it becomes otherwise.
We just happen to be otherwisely “BUSY” – NOW! (In truth, some of our “busyness” involves scheming about ways to avoid the imposition of purposeful engagement!)
NOW is no big deal. We’ve been here before … just us, and here and NOW … and survived. There’s no sense of urgency, no continuity of momentum, and very little “regenerative” or re-energizing activity. THAT’s the problem with NOW!
The problem with everything that went BEFORE now is that many of us came from “squishy soft” beginnings – from the protective “womb” of First-World civilization with doting parents, generous “allowances”, self-esteem-building engagements and trophies, television, video games, entertainment of all sorts, heavily subsidized support systems, caring parents, teachers and coaches, and a hard-to-resist expectation that all of these amenities would continue indefinitely into the future.
Unfortunately, Delayed Ramification Reality brings with it a variety of sobering “lessons” that just keep on coming … like you can’t get more out of the system than you invest … and don’t mess with Gravity!
Which brings us to the problem with the FUTURE: The future seems so inextricably tied to the past and the present, as though we simply pass unobtrusively from one through one to the other and keep on going … however Fate would have it. [What GAP?] Zig Ziglar was fond of saying: “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.” Unfortunately, “it ain’t necessarily so”! What got us through kindergarten (with all due respect to Robert Fulghum) really won’t carry us through high school, college, job searches, promotions, divorce, bankruptcy, and a whole lot more. Kindergarten was heavily subsidized and filled with unconditional love. The rest of life definitely is NOT!
Technically, time does run everything together chronologically … the past, the present and the future … but not necessarily in any teleological progression. The “natural order” of things only progresses with a whole lot of unrecoverable energy invested. (Check out ENTROPY and Thermodynamics: The Second Law) Where we are NOW is not where we are going to WANT or NEED to be in that glorious place called the future (check out Maslow’s Pyramid), and time, alone, is not going to make us “all that we can be”.
“Time is only God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once!”
Attribution Unknown
So what’s the “Take Home” message here? What can we do to close the GAP? First of all, we need to understand and acknowledge that the GAP exists.
Second, keep building infrastructure, putting bricks in your own “Yellow Brick Road”. Increase your education at every opportunity.
Use “unscheduled time” as though your life depended on it
– it DOES!.
Third, and finally (but maybe even before First!), find and relentlessly pursue your Passion and Purpose in life. Passion and Purpose will not only fill any GAP, they will serve a “Slingshot Accelerators” to TOP DOG vistas. Surprise yourself and amaze your family and friends. The sheer wonder of YOU is waiting in the wings to FINALLY be realized! Quartermaster
