Living In The Present Moment

Overcoming Our Ought's and Ifs

I don’t know about you, but it is easy for me to “tune out” the present moment and take a trip to a faraway mental land. A land where I attempt to relive a past event or a land where I try to construct an unseen future. Always living in the present moment is difficult for me!

Running into the future or reliving the past are the real dangers in our lives? Dangers that threaten our hope and our security? This danger goes beyond a shaky economy. Inflation or the threat of an enemy country. The real danger each of us faces each and every day is our escaping our own “ought’s” and “what ifs.” They are dangerous because they try to steal our hope!

Even though we exist in the present, the current time and place, we often step into the past. We backtrack through our memory and dwell on what we could’ve, should’ve, would’ve done differently. We lament decisions we made or didn’t make. We rewind and reword in our minds what we said and should have said. We pull our past with us like a U-Haul trailer. Every time we look in the mirror, it is there—crammed full of our “ junk.”

Our brains constantly remind us of the mistakes we made. Sometimes we are fortunate to see the victories, the things we did correctly. But then our “ought’s” and “shoulds“ jump to the front of the line, yelling and screaming, “Remember me!” Like a two-year-old child throwing a tantrum, they do everything they can to get our attention. We try to push them away and forget about them. We try to focus on the present or on the positives of the past. We might be successful for a while, but they seem to always come back. We can’t seem to erase the thoughts of what could have or should have been.

Likewise, our “what ifs” also step in to haunt us. When we are not focusing on the past, we are speculating about the future. What if the economy crashes? What if I get diagnosed with cancer? What if I lose my job? What if my retirement investments tank? What if… What if…

We can actually get pretty creative with our “what if’s.” We can come up with some pretty wild scenarios. And that creativity seems to always lean toward the worse!

The main problem with these two enemies is that they remove us from real life. We do not live in the past or the future. We live in the now—the present moment. When our focus is on the past or the future, we miss the now!

The past is just that - the past. We do not have a time machine to go back and relive it. There are no “do-overs” in real life. There are indeed consequences of our past words and actions. We can sometimes make adjustments that correct or soften those consequences, but we cannot undo what has happened.

We also do not have a crystal ball that can tell us the future. We have no idea of what tomorrow will actually bring. The only guarantee we have is the present moment!

The guilt of our past and the worry about our future actually immobilize us in the present. They keep us from ever being fully engaged in the now. Our minds are always occupied with where we’ve been or where we are going.

So how do we overcome “ought’s” and “ifs?” How do we stay in the present moment? Here are four steps to take in defeating the enemy of “ought’s” and “what ifs.”

First, we must make a conscious commitment to live in the here and now. What is past cannot be relived! The future has not happened yet. Cognitively, we know this, but emotionally, we often believe that rehashing the past or speculating about the future will somehow enhance our lives. The first step is to consciously make a commitment not to go there.

Second, we need to recognize that our “ought’s” and “ifs” are actually fantasy worlds. Everything we think about them comes from our imagination, not reality. Yes, what did happen was real, but how we might have changed it is pure fantasy. We cannot go back in time and change what happened.. The future has not happened, and what we think might happen is speculation. It may or may not happen. Trying to predict what will happen in the future is futile.

Third, we must forgive ourselves for our past decisions and actions. The Apostle John tells us that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:9 CSB. If we truly believe John’s words that God forgives us, then we become presumptuous when we fail to forgive ourselves.

Fourth, we step into the hope of our relationship with God. Hope is the real key to living in the presence, for is actually the expectation of what is certain.

Let us hold firmly to the hope that we have confessed, because we can trust God to do what he promised. – Hebrews 10:23 NCV

God has given us so many wonderful promises. Those promises might be summed up in the Apostle Peter’s words: His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness” 2 Peter 1:3 CSB. One major promise for living life is hope.

Henri Nouwen shares that “hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone.”¹

Hope allows us to live in the present, because we know that God is in control. He holds us in his loving arms, no matter what has happened in the past or what will happen in the future.

Stepping into the fantasy land of our past “ought’s” or the future “what ifs” is so tempting and so easy. However, because of our hope in God we can rise above these enemies and be totally present in each moment. When we do, we enjoy a deeper sense of being and belonging. We enjoy the blessing of living in the present!

1. Here and Now by Henri J. M. Nouwen