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For the past few weeks, we’ve had wonderful weather where I live. Mild temperatures, scattered showers, mostly at night, and low humidity.

It’s perfect for everyone, including people who run or bicycle, garden, or work out of doors picking up the garbage, repairing roofs, painting, or cutting down the many huge trees that fell during our June storm. It’s perfect, too, for someone who just likes to walk at a moderate pace, enjoying the scenery, or who likes being able to go to bed without worrying about a sweaty sleepless night or the hum of an air conditioner.

What’s not to like? Apparently, quite a lot.

You see, a number of folks are convinced we are having an early September, which of course will be followed by an early October, then November, and – oh, heavens – we’re going to be knee-deep in ice and snow in no time at all. It isn’t fair! We haven’t had enough summer!

HOW WILL WE COPE?

These folks are knee-deep, not in snow, but in dire predictions about the future, at which they are, by all odds, abysmally wrong.

Our most experienced meteorologists don’t make this prediction – they know the future is up for grabs. Some years we have had a September or even early October with temperatures in the high 90’s; snow is possible in September, but this hasn’t happened in my (fairly long) memory.

In the United States, we are particularly addicted to FutureThink, where we live mentally in the future while failing to note, and enjoy, what is here right now.

Not to flog a dead horse (keep repeating something over and over, seemingly for no good reason) but I have mentioned this before, and I’ll do it again: only 10% of stress is due to what is happening right now; 90% is due to what we think about what it happening to us.  What we are really doing, when we think about it, is predicting the future as a terrible outcome because of today’s events.

So …  when has the future worked out exactly as you predicted it would?  If you were that good a predictor, you would be world-famous as a soothsayer.

People on their death beds don’t congratulate themselves on how often they were right in predicting disastrous outcomes; instead, they regret what they didn’t do – or appreciate, or notice.

You can only appreciate, notice, and even take successful action, when you are able to focus on the present and savor it.

Take that deep breathe, withdraw your predictions, and wallow in the very today-ness of today.  Because it’s really all there is.   Really.

The Confident Introvert

“What are they afraid of?” my department manager used to ask after meetings in which a number of department members sat, silent and resentful, while he was unaware that his habit of springing surprise agenda items and asking for an immediate decision was very upsetting to these talented, educated introverts. Understanding, appreciating and utilizing the skills of introversion are foreign ideas to some – even to introverts. Now you can read about it in
The Confident Introvert.
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