when I started this YouTube channel I became fixated on the day it would succeed I stopped going out with friends and spent almost every waking moment working towards and dreaming about the future when I did manage to go out with friends I spent all my time daydreaming I was stuck imagining a far off future a future that would never come don't get me wrong objectively this channel is successful and all of you who choose to watch these videos have literally changed my whole life but the future I dreamed of will never come come because there's
always something more to chase something bigger and better to look forward to many of us live life like this we spend most of our time preoccupied with things that don't exist and very little time enjoying the things that do when we're not fixating on the future we're being haunted by the past we spend our nights crawled up in bed thinking about the wrong choices we've made in the past and what we wish we' done instead as a culture we're obsessed with time we're both haunted by the past and dreading the future but the truth is
that the future and the past don't don't exist we might think that the past and the future are as real as the present but that's the illusion of time in reality the present is the only thing that exists or can exist a clock tracks movement like the rotation of the Earth in our orbit around the Sun but its measurement of time isn't objective there is only the present and its direction is forward the past can be accessed by our memories or recordings but even this access is tremendously limited our memory is fallible we often misremember
critical details of events and can be influenced to think we did something we never did memory itself is known to get less accurate each time we think to reflect on it and when video is available it doesn't give you the first person experience it's only a tiny piece of the past that doesn't truly capture what it was like to be there or the full range of emotions you felt at the time the past is just a previous experience of the present it doesn't exist the future hasn't happened yet we might prepare for conditions like rain
later in the week many of us will make plans for a satisfying career but these things don't exist and there's a fair chance they won't ever exist the forecast is often wrong and careers rarely go as planned if you continue to obsess over the past and the future you'll never truly live a full life you'll be too busy thinking about the moments that have either already passed or are yet to come you'll forget to be present and to take it all [Music] in whereas animals live primarily in the present humans have strong memories we combine
time together this can be helpful from a survival standpoint our species anticipates the future and prepares for it now this was necessary for humans to successfully survive threats and to develop more complex societies early humans carve Spears to take down woolly mammoths they realized that if they made these weapons now they'd have a better chance of killing a giant Beast tomorrow they also anticipated that a mammoth would provide sustenance for a long time and by preparing for the future they significantly increase their odds of survival this ability to plan for the future is why we're
here today but we've paid a heavy price for that practical sense of time and that price is our happiness our peace of mind we're too stuck in the future to be at ease now we make it all seem okay by telling ourselves the big lie according to the British philosopher Alan Watts this notorious untruth is that we think we'll be happy in our imagined future but it never comes when that future does arrive according to our current definition of time we'll be stuck in another imagined future our minds will be focused on the future until
our bodies no longer have a pole sits like a donkey chasing a carrot on a string we can never get closer to our meal and our appetite will never go away to an observer the donkey is foolish but from a first- person perspective we're convinced of the illusion we don't see the string or the stick only the carrot and the promise that it holds many of us are stuck in a future when we'll will be happy healthy and have the job of our dreams we get so obsessed about what our financial future could be that
we don't realize we need to work in the present to create that future to create that future you want in your stem of career you need brilliant.org the sponsor of today's video when making the videos on this channel I often come across lots of data that is difficult to understand for even me it's even worse when I have to communicate this information to you in a way that's not just easy to understand but also interesting tell me get better at visualizing and communicating data I took Brilliance exploring data visually course and it's helped out tremendously
it helped me to visualize data properly which made it super easy for me to talk about those numbers in a way that's easy to follow and understand brilliant has thousands of other lessons in many different areas artificial intelligence mathematics logic science and more with thousands of new lessons added every single month there's something in here for everyone brilliant also makes learning fun with features that allow you to challenge yourself and compute with others the courses are also taught in an interactive way so you learn not just the theory but also how you can apply them
in the real world each course is customized to fit your skill level so you can start learning today whether you're a beginner or more advanced to try out the exploring data visually course and all other course is completely free for 30 days go to brilliant.org aperture or click the link in the description the first 200 people to visit also get 20% off a premium subscription which unlocks every single course brilliant has to offer back to our story our our memories control our lives and we make decisions about the present in the future based on what
happened in the past using our memory we limit the possibilities of the present we assume we can't do something because we weren't able to do it in the past we avoid going places and doing things because we've previously had poor experiences with them sometimes we decline offers because they conflict with our sense of who we are based on our past understanding of our identity you may think of yourself as self-sufficient but what about those moments when you truly need help people have died clinging to their identity as self-sufficient and why because they're tied to a
past that doesn't even exist our schools train us to always look for the next ladder to climb the present is mostly considered beneath us and we criticize those who live in the moment because they're not preparing for the future they're focused on now which by our cultural standards is often regarded as antisocial Behavior we invent gadgets for productivity thinking they will give us more time it's like saying you can enjoy more moments if you buy the next of tech but all we end up doing is anticipating the next upgrade or the next big innovation that's
why the most popular question that Tech reviewers get is should I buy this now or wait for the next one and when we get the new technology we use it to escape the now rather than embrace it for over 15 years we've had the ultimate tool for fleeing the present our smartphones we turn to our phones whenever we're idle or in any situation without something purposeful to do and we feel a panic from the present and Escape it by seeking out the past and future on our mobile we make plans with text conversations or by
opening up the calendar we browse news about what's already happened or read predictions about what will happen next alerts are set in the reminders app and we accept notifications to warn us about anything and everything that isn't in our present moment when's the next ball game what are the best beach resorts where's the price of housing headed we're constantly searching for answers about the future instead of enjoying the present on social media we look at images of the lives of others and we project ourselves into a future where we're on vacation like our social media
connections or we look back on the trips we've taken in the past and with regret we wish we'd plan things differently it's not so easy to live in the present sitting still gives us anxiety as a survival mechanism preparing for the future and anxiety are intrinsically connected we're not planning for the future when we're in the moment it can feel a bit like closing your eyes when you're driving you're not looking at what's ahead to avoid disaster but we've evolved beyond the point where survival needs to occupy our minds always at least in fact many
of our jobs are only connected to survival because they provide us with an income to buy food and shelter we've got free time outside of our occupations at the very least we should enjoy a free time by living in it our smartphones open a gateway to filling that time with plans for the future many of us will prepare our next workday or respond to emails about the past we ignore the people around us and become more distant from them relationships are all about the present and one of the ways you can tell they're not going
so well is if one or both partners aren't very present the more we try to escape the present moment the more we neglect our relationships and ironically many of our plans are intended to strengthen our relationships we save for retirements and vacations in other words we're planning for a time when we can exist in the moment but when that time comes we'll be stuck thinking about another future instead of enjoying the one we're in of course Global issues make living in the moment particularly challenging the climate is changing due to humans creating greenhouse gas emissions
a legitimate threat to our survival we need to do what we can to prevent catastrophes in the future but we shouldn't let that steal the present from us otherwise we'll only be saving a future that we won't even be bothered to live in Alan Watts was a student of Eastern philosophy he studied Buddhism Zen Buddhism DSM Hinduism and more and from his studies he took away the importance of being present and methods of living in the now the ceing these religious Concepts made him very popular in the west he wasn't a proper scholar in the
strict sense but he wrote a lot of books on these subjects and gave a lot of entertaining lectures some of his teachings are a bit dated now but his distilled messages are still as relevant as the future continues to haunt us at every turn Watts had a particular interest in Zen Buddhism it emphasizes being here and now but also goes much deeper than that unlike the teachings of Buddha Zen Buddhists believe that achieving a permanent state of Enlightenment or Nirvana was imp impossible we can only try for fleeting moments of pure Essence called Satori these
are moments when we're so perfectly in the present that we're cut off completely from the past and the future we experience the present without our ingrained interpretation of the world around us we don't see chairs as chairs we see no chairs words fail to capture Zen as do logic and our schematic laws of thought in explaining Zen to you I am failing to demonstrate Zen that's why Zen Masters often respond to questions by raising a finger Alan Watts would hit a symbol in an attempt to demonstrate Zen the idea isn't to murder the mind or
bring it to nothingness Zen is an affirmation it wants to put you in direct contact with your mind in order to give you peace Zen Buddhists believe in the inner Purity inside us and that getting closer to it should be our ultimate goal in achieving Zen the past and the future won't bother you as forms of structured thought the past and future have no way to enter your mind they don't exist in Zen they don't exist at all when watt speaks of time as an illusion he's suggesting that we aren't doomed to live as being
stifled by time like the Zen Buddhist we can live in the present even when we aren't striving for moments of Satori we can still free ourselves from the tyranny of the past in the future carpium sees the day to better understand how to live in the present moment watch this video on [Music] Hedonism
