1. Has the future got you in a tizzy?
For the past few weeks, we’ve had wonderful weather where I live. Mild temperatures, scattered
showers, mostly at night, and low humidity.
It’s perfect for everyone, including people who run or bicycle, garden, or work out of doors picking
up the garbage, repairing roofs, painting, or cutting down the many huge trees that fell during our
June storm. It’s perfect, too, for someone who just likes to walk at a moderate pace, enjoying the
scenery, or who likes being able to go to bed without worrying about a sweaty sleepless night or the
hum of an air conditioner.
What’s not to like? Apparently, quite a lot.
You see, a number of folks are convinced we are having an
early September, which of course will be followed by an early
October, then November, and – oh, heavens – we’re going to
be knee-deep in ice and snow in no time at all. It isn’t fair! We
haven’t had enough summer!
HOW WILL WE COPE?
These folks are knee-deep, not in snow, but in dire predictions
about the future, at which they are, by all odds, abysmally
wrong.
Our most experienced meteorologists don’t make this prediction – they know the future is up
for grabs. Some years we have had a September or even early October with temperatures in the
high 90’s; snow is possible in September, but this hasn’t happened in my (fairly long) memory.
In the United States, we are particularly addicted to FutureThink, where we live mentally in
the future while failing to note, and enjoy, what is here right now.
Not to flog a dead horse (keep repeating something over and over, seemingly for no good reason)
but I have mentioned this before, and I’ll do it again: only 10% of stress is due to what is happening
right now; 90% is due to what we think about what it happening to us. What we are really doing,
when we think about it, is predicting the future as a terrible outcome because of today’s events.
So … when has the future worked out exactly as you predicted it would? If you were that
good a predictor, you would be world-famous as a soothsayer.
People on their death beds don’t congratulate themselves on how often they were right in predicting
disastrous outcomes; instead, they regret what they didn’t do – or appreciate, or notice.
You can only appreciate, notice, and even take successful action, when you are able to focus
on the present and savor it.
Take that deep breathe, withdraw your predictions, and wallow in the very today-ness of
today. Because it’s really all there is. Really.

2. Lynette Crane, M.A.(Psychology) and Certified Life Coach,is a Minneapolis-based speaker, writer,
and coach. She has more than 30 years' experience in the field of stress management. She currently
works to provide stress and time pressure solutions to harried women, those women who seek
"Islands of Peace" in their overly-busy lives. Her talks to groups of what she calls "harried women"
are receiving rave reviews. Visit her website at http://www.creativelifechanges.com/ to see more in-
depth articles and to view her programs.