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One At a Time

bradolson
Mar 9, 2015
3 min read

By Lauren Shaw, Ph.D.

There are several dates that seem eternally drilled into my brain. One of those dates is May 4th, which was my son’s due date. From the time I saw two pink lines and knew the magic date, my whole world seemed to revolve around getting to May 4th. I had a very uncomfortable pregnancy, and I can remember ticking off the days on my calendar, wondering how I would manage 12 more weeks, 8 more weeks, 4 more weeks. In anticipation, I found myself living in the future, waiting and wondering about what lay ahead.

Since babies can’t read calendars, my son did not arrive on his due date, but was born several days later. Nevertheless, that May 4th date has stayed firmly in my brain, as I spent so many days waiting for that one. One of the wonderful things about the human brain is that it has the capacity to remember the past and anticipate the future. These two faculties also seem to cause us a great deal of trouble.

The ability to anticipate the future really is an amazing gift. Where would we be without our ability to plan and organize? To make an appointment for next week and keep that appointment? To know that we are going to want to eat dinner and plan for it before we are ravenously hungry with no food in the house? To be aware that we are low on gas and need to fill up before taking a long drive through a remote area? It is incredibly important that we be able to plan for and anticipate the future. Yet for many of us, this skill has gotten rather warped. Rather than just planning our week, we find ourselves projecting ourselves forward into the week. Our thoughts and emotions fly ahead of us, and we find ourselves spending a great deal of time and energy worrying about what will unfold and how it will unfold. It seems that much of the worry and some of the anxiety that people experience is the direct result of trying to live in the future. If much of the worry we experience is caused by trying to live in the future, it may help to remember that it is actually impossible to do so. We cannot really live in the future. It can’t be done. We only have this second, this moment to live in. Projecting ourselves forward and imagining how things could go does absolutely no good. I’ve heard it said that we are only given one day at a time because we absolutely could not handle multiple days at once. Time is a gift to us. Accept the gift of time and stop trying to handle more than the moment. The cliché tells us to take it one day at a time. Truthfully, it’s our only choice if we choose to live in reality. I know that sometimes one day at a time feels like too much. Some mornings the distance between brushing your teeth when you get up and brushing your teeth before bed feels like an impossible climb. And those days, you take it one hour at a time. Or one minute. Or one second. So the next time you are lying awake in bed on a Sunday night and mentally rehearsing all that needs to unfold in the next five or six days, take a deep breath. Become aware of what is happening right then and there. Is your bed warm and cozy? Is your home quiet and peaceful? And choose to live there, in that moment instead.