Some people fear, “If I keep feeling good about the present, won’t it take away my motivation for seeking a better future?”
Not necessarily; just because we see the good in our present doesn’t mean that we can’t or won’t seek a better future. To the contrary, appreciating the good in our present may be a desirable, even essential, foundation for working toward better things in our future. After all, our better future is quite unlikely to appear magically without any connection whatsoever with our present; it is most likely to start appearing when we leverage the good in our present. And to utilize our present good, we need to first appreciate it as good, which is what gratitude enables us to do.
Most importantly, better things in the future are tentative — despite our best efforts, they may not manifest. In contrast, good things in the present are tangible — they can provide us real happiness if we just appreciate them more. If we are too infatuated with the possibility of something better in our future, we may unwittingly blind ourselves to the reality of the good in our present. Such obsession with some future happiness can lock us in perpetual dissatisfaction. Why should we let the craving for tentative happiness in the future rob us of our capacity to experience tangible happiness in the present?
Thankfully, we can protect ourselves from unnecessary and counterproductive self-deprivation by cultivating gratitude. Pointing to the importance of being grateful in our present, the Bhagavad-gita (17.16) recommends contentment as a discipline of the mind.
One-sentence summary:
Gratitude doesn’t prevent us from striving for a better future; it enables us to more effectively use our present for creating a better future, and it prevents tentative happiness in our future from depriving us of tangible happiness in our present.
Think it over:
- How can appreciating the present help us in creating a better future?
- How may we deprive ourselves of happiness in the present?
- List three good things in your present that you are failing to appreciate because of the craving for something better in the future.
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17.16: And satisfaction, simplicity, gravity, self-control and purification of one’s existence are the austerities of the mind.
To know more about this verse, please click on the image
A contented mind never get depressed