Do You Live For Today or Do You Focus On The Future??? (page 3)

starfish422

A bit of both; I am planning for the future, of course, being a wife and parent. But I also believe in life *before* death.

I try to live life in the present--and mostly have. This year more than ever has this been true. But as I have gotten older, I realize more and more that LIFE happens to you. Sometimes LIFE hits you with a curve ball, and when you stop to examine how this curve ball could have happened, and realize it's not from either God or the "devil", (I'd like to believe it's the universe at work) but just plain LIFE, it makes you take pause into the workings of the universe. You see that EVERYTHING has an ebb and flow. The weather, the oceans and seas, people, etc. EVERYTHING is alive and moves on this earth. You also learn that life has no guarantees and what you might put off now or not do, even though every fiber of your being says to go ahead and take that leap, when you are very old, you may regret that you didn't listen to your first instinct.

Uzzah

Well I:

"Live for the day, when we'll say

Life without end at last"

Damn. Now that stupid song is running through my head.

minimus

ohhhh Uzzah----No wonder God struck him dead for going where he shouldn't of.......I like that----"Life BEFORE death", not life after death!----Flowerpetal, that was very moving.

Undecided

Java, I also thought they really don't believe what they are saying about the end comming soon.

Society?s policy of buying property while encouraging the flock to sell the little they had ?in the short time

Why bother to build and expand their buildings if the end was so soon. I think that shows the GB doesn't believe what they say.

Ken P.

JAVA

Minimus ? thanks for the welcome. Ken P. ? Looking back while doing time in the Tower, it?s interesting to remember how our WT-Filters worked with issues that didn?t make sense. For example, most JWs knew the Society was buying property and building like crazy in the ?60s and early ?70s. However, we reasoned Jehovah was causing the Society to grow so it could handle the increased work after the BIG A. It?s like the old saying, ?If you tell a lie big enough, most will believe it? (or something like that). :-)

minimus

JAVA----I agree with that thinking in the 60's and 70's. But if we even TRIED to think about it, if Armageddon came, we could've taken over all the propert anyway. Duh.

Flowerpetal

Min:

Flowerpetal, that was very moving.

LOL! Yes, I see now that is was.

Phantom Stranger

It's possible to live in the moment and at the same time make your current actions serve your larger goals.

Having been out for 17 years, I can sincerely say that learning to plan for the future - retirement, etc., has taken some work, and I still struggle with it sometimes. I know that getting involved in long-term goals has been a transformative act for me.

There's a Zen story of a monk who is being chased by a tiger. He slips off of a high ledge while fleeing the tiger, and is hanging by a root over a chasm. In front of him growing out of the side of the cliff is a strawberry bush with a ripe strawberry. The monk eats it and says, "This is a very good strawberry".

Now that's living in the moment.

JAVA

Minimus--You're right, of course. Members of religious high-control groups don't think--they obey. When they start thinking--they leave . . . and here we are at last!

Do You Live For Today or Do You Focus On The Future???

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