The Biggest Lie On The Planet

(Great photo, for many obvious reasons)

Something very hilarious and seemingly disturbing is happening to people everywhere I turn. And I am not talking about a rise in people who think that Rush Limbaugh is going to blow a blood vessel on TV while making another drama filled speech or the people who seem to think that some celebrity winning or not winning some award is not that big of a (excuse me Gabriel, but Zen habits has the best personal development on the internet). It’s about people who are living for the next moment.

What does living for the next moment mean? It means that there has been a steady increase in people who are not happy now, but are living for what could or could not happen in the future. It’s what is commonly called,

“When I get what I want, I will be happy”

Now I know that you have heard this saying before, unless of course you have been living under a rock for the duration of your life and are just now finding out the literally amazing resource that is the internet porn…….er I mean Wikipedia and the mind numbing endless searches that can occur on Google.

As many of you know, I live in generation Y, the generation of kids burring their face in computers, updating their Facebook status, living paycheck to paycheck, and generally the beginnings of the advancement of the human generation as seen in Wall-E

INSERT PICTURE OF FAT WALLE HUMANS

But I digress; people are always looking for the next big thing. Because it’s the next big thing that is going to make your life less shitty, get you a boyfriend, give you six pack abs in 6 days. I see this mentality all the time, especially in the college aged individuals

“When I get out of college and get a great job, then life will be all good”

“When I make 100,000 dollars a year after my I get my masters, then I will be living the good life”

“When I graduate college, life will be so much better”

I am sure that you have heard these statements around the office, from your friends, or even in your home

“When I get that big promotion, then these 60 hour work weeks will be worth it”

“When I can pay off the mortgage on the house, life will be much better”

“When I get to travel to Europe, my life will be complete”

When I _________ I will be ________

This is a lie and yet everyone and their mother seems to be adopting this mindset, like its some new designer pair of overpriced jeans or some cool new toy that you can put on layaway at Best Buy. Living for the future seems to be what all the cool kids are doing.

I know this is a lie because I have lived it first hand, I have had those if then moments many times in my life, and found that once they were achieved, there was no magical rainbow coming down from the sky with a leprechaun and a pot of gold, there was always more to it than that.

I would find myself hating whatever was going on in the present moment, whether it was living in a state with less than desirable weather, having a lack of social flexibility, not having a girlfriend, or just generally being unhappy. I would tell myself that in the next day, week, month, year, or some magical point in the future. I convinced myself that this point in the future would make all my problems disappear, and that the magic happy dragon would come and whisk me away (and I wasn’t even smoking pot). I would get the girl of my dreams, and then everything would be okay. I would get the perfect job as a nightclub owner and live the lifestyle I always wanted. I would develop the largest network of friends anyone has seen, and have unlimited contacts for nearly anything I wanted in life.

Guess what? I got a lot of those wishes. And while all of them came and went, none of them made me truly happy for more than a brief moment. Was I unhappy after I went through all of them? No, in fact after a lot of them I had some of the happiest moments of my life, but it wasn’t because I had achieved them, it was because I found happiness in myself after they happened that I saw the greatness in the things that I had accomplished.

The key is that I was happy when I decided to be

Now I know a lot of self help gurus and preaching personal development fanatics always talk about this, and I am not going to sit here and tell you a million reasons why you should be happy right now. What I am going to tell you is that nothing is ever going to be better than this moment. No matter what happens in your future, whether you have a night of passion filled love making with your favorite celebrity, make 100 billion dollars, or even travel the world and see every damn person on this planet, everything will always fall back to the present moment.

So instead of saying (see lying to yourself) that you want to work an extra 20 hours per week at your job, to get that promotion you think you need, to get the bigger house and nicer car that probably doesn’t mean jack shit in the long run, maybe you should take a moment and realize that if this was as good as it was ever going to get, would you….no fuck that……….are you happy?

If the answer is no, then you should probably make a change or two in your life that will make you feel better right now instead of some point in the distant or even not to distant future.

If you are happy, then the answer is obvious, keep doing what you’re doing (unless you are Dexter from that show on Showtime)

This isn’t rocket science, and I am not trying to instill some radical belief in you that will lead you to the Kool-Aid and promised land, I just firmly believe that you should be happy damn it, and not have some bull shit excuses for yourself as to why you cant be happy now and only when.

Heres’ to being a happy ass sob

Gabriel