The MONTHLY Motivator - January 2006

Creating the future

At this very moment you are creating your future. That future is, for the most part, open ended. Sure, a few limitations have already been placed on it. Yet those limitations pale in comparison to the unimaginably vast possibilities still open to you.

The future is relentlessly arriving and it will continue to do so, no matter what actions you take or avoid. The best strategy for making that oncoming future the best it can possibly be is to become just as relentless at shaping it in a positive way.

That demands a certain kind of determined focus. At any moment in time, you are living out the legacy of your past and you are simultaneously creating the reality of your future. Because those two dynamics are experienced together in the moment known as the present, they seem unavoidably connected. But they are not.

Your past does not equal your future, unless you choose in the present to make it so. There is really very little intrinsic connection between the past, which cannot be changed, and the future, which is open ended. The present moment in which you live is your grand opportunity to reinforce the appropriate, desired positive connections, and to sever the negative ones, between your past and your future. Within that purview is every possibility imaginable -- good, bad, indifferent, destructive and creative.

Every achievement, every success, every heartache springs forth from the actions taken in those present moments which connect the past to the future. The important part of this powerful equation is right now. What has happened in the past does not matter nearly so much as what you do with it now. The universe of possibility that is the future does not matter nearly so much as do those specific possibilities you bring to fruition by your choice of action right now.

The future is yours to create. It can be as dependent on, or as independent from, your past as you wish it to be. That’s not a license to abandon your responsibilities, but rather to beautifully fulfill them.

A key decision in every moment is this. What part of you will you carry forward into the future, what part will you leave behind, and what new part will you create? Each day you have the opportunity to improve the mixture, to learn from experience, to benefit from the past, to be inspired by others, to set your sights on a new and compelling pursuit, to fulfill the promise of your previous efforts.

It can be an astounding journey. The choice is completely up to you. Your possibilities in the future can draw from every good thing you’ve ever done, and from the experience and resources you’ve already accumulated. Yet those possibilities need not be hampered by the failures or shortcomings you’ve known. Your future is just as bright as is the future of anyone you can imagine, when you choose to make it so with your actions in the present.

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--Ralph Marston

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