I don’t really have a Landmark Forum review here, so I thought I’d take the time to write something about an idea from the Landmark Forum that’s personally made a big difference in my life, particularly lately. I became reminded of it in this video of a Landmark Forum leader I saw recently which discussed the topic.
I don’t think I’ve ever written about much length about the idea of living into a future – I’m not going to bother to take the time to check all my past posts, so bear with me if I’m repeating myself.
What do I mean by ‘living into a future’? What I mean is the idea that one’s current experience of live in the present moment, and from that experience the actions that one is taking in the present moment, is entirely a function of the future into which one is living. It’s not the present circumstances, or things in the past that happened, that give us who we are and what we do now; it’s instead the future we are living into.
Example: a man is due to be released from prison the next day. He may be sitting in a dingy cell, he may have had a miserable 10 years behind bars, but now he is happy beyond measure that he will be free tomorrow.
Another example: the same man 10 years earlier, the day before he was due to be taken to jail. He might be sitting in his own house free, but he’s miserable because tomorrow he will be taken to jail for 10 years.
In these examples it’s pretty obvious that what’s giving our actions and our feelings right is the future we’re living into, not how it is in the present moment or the past.
One caveat, and this is a big one, if the future we are living into looks like more of what’s happened before, more of the past, as it often does to us, then it will appear that this isn’t true – it will appear that the past is giving our life. But this is an illusion – it’s still the future we are living into that’s giving us our life – it’s simply a question of whether it’s a new future, an interesting future, an inspiring future – or the same old future that’s actually the past in disguise.
I’ve gotten more and more clear recently that the future is just that, the future; it hasn’t happened yet and I have a say about it and to think that it has to be determined by the past is actually a form of insanity, albeit a form of insanity that many of us often suffer from. From my exercising, my relationships with my family, my work; I’m very clear that I can have things happen that have never happened before. And that’s pretty exciting!
As a person who has participated in this work continually since Oct 1972, I want to say, “Well Done”, regarding your post. What have you done and what are you doing re: keeping this principle in existence and present every moment by moment of your life.
A future that I keep in front of myself is that I am a Crew Member on this Spaceship called Earth.
An accountability that I have taken on is that one aspect of our birthright that is real and available to all of us [if we say so and act like we mean it] is that our bodies are designed to be healthy and fully functional, even pain free, for as long as 140 years [confirmed with genitic scientists].
There’s more to say and Perhaps I’ll say more later…
Comment by Tom Davidson — April 10, 2010 @ 2:25 pm