With a new year do you live for today or plan ahead for the future?

I live for today.. the inevitable future scares me. All I can really do is hope for a good one and get started with college.. I have no time to worry too much. Besides, i’m one of those people who makes plans only for them to be destroyed. :( So I rather just live for the now because acts within the present don’t affect you too bad in the future.. depends on what you do really.. point is. Living for the now is best in my opinion.

I have to live day by day. Otherwise, I live in fear of what might happen. That kind of fear is bad for me: it takes my attention of what needs care in my life.

I try to balance it. I try to live without regrets, and I probably spend a morbid amount of time thinking about the legacy I will leave for my grand children.
I also plan for the future so I can have financially stress free golden years. Anything can change in an instant though, so I hope I can make every moment count. (I’m closer to retirement than most jellies though.)

I’m just trying to get through right now.

Learn the lessons of yesterday, live fot today, and plan for tommorow.

I plan ahead. Not only the year, but actually 5 years, 10 years and longer.

I try to strike a balance between the two. Accent on the try because sometimes I am not successful. I try to focus on the moment while at the same time trying to be sure that the choices I am making are in line with the ultimate goals I have in this life.

I just try to get by one day at a time. Every morning I wake up disappointed that I didn’t die in my sleep.

I am glad you asked this question. i will apply your question to the rookie police officers in my department. most of these officers want everything today. they want what i have worked for, for 44years. i was No. 1 one in senority in my department. the rookies wanted this. i was topped out for many years in my salary, the rookies wanted this. i had a brand new police car each year, the rookies wanted this. i have a great pension earning 82% of my salary, the rookies want this. the bottomline here is this: things in life have to be earned, not given to you on a silver platter. i have earned what i have accomplished and the rookies will just have to wait their turn.

Both. Early this year we will be doing much planning, as we will be having a baby around March 1st. I’m a natural planner, but I also enjoy just winging it sometimes.

I live each day trying to remember it could be my last – I check in with my loved ones more that way – I also understand the need to plan.

@mattbrowne There lies the big paradox. I try or like to think I have a plan for the future, next week, next month, couple of years from now, but at the same time getting up in age I feel I have not the time to do all of that or I may not get there just because age related health issues will come up. I know this is probably unwarranted worry because I hear each week some young person getting killed in some fashion and I bet they had all manner of thoughts that they would get old or they should have. Many people do not want to think about that part of their future, their mortality, but it is there and very real. Seeing you do not know the day of your demise, to work like a dog trying to get seniority, tenure only to get taken out by a drunk driver is to seem to have wasted a lot of time that could be used for enjoyment.

But to spend everyday just doing as you want for that day’s enjoyment never thinking further than sunset, you may find yourself not having so much fun if you should live to the future and not have planned for it. One doesn’t take a road trip without planning where to eat or get gas, so it is almost like you are compelled to do it for life, even while that is taking up time that fun could be had.

@john65pennington That is why most are in debt, they want the big house, boat, big screen, dream vacation trip now, not later after they have worked, saved, and earned it.

I was thinking of how every time a decade passes, in general or since you were born, it is like a wide open stretch, and i don’t know if I’m going to pass another strong mark/ milkstone (or whatever), or if i’m going to fall somewhere in the middle of it. Also, there are so many way things could be aligned for the time we are still in this place, it’s kind of strange to think of all the ways things could go, and I think it would feel safer for it to be in the control of some deeper processes that drive things in this dimension, because it doesn’t seem like i am strong enough as just a human to make anything work. =P… i don’t know…........ (!)
Also, with this whole thing, it started making me see time in a different way, and all the things that you might plan or think of, I could kind of see in their threatening reality…
Happy new year…! =/
=)

@Hypocrisy_Central – Plans are plans. Sometimes they need to be changed. Sometimes they don’t work at all and when looking back we can learn for the future.