There is something quite liberating about living in the moment. A few days ago I was in dialog with Peter Fenner. He was explaining how it is possible to frame conversations so that we forget about both the future and the past, instead living in the moment. At such a point, our anxieties about the future disappear. If we have everything we need right now, what is there in the future to worry about.
A related point discussed how in that moment we have all the resources we need to survive. Logically it can be no other way. Otherwise we would not be surviving in that moment. Statements such as “I can’t cope” for you are proving otherwise simply by your existence. Perhaps the meaning is “I don’t believe I can cope in my imagined future”. But in the moment, the future is only imagined and you don’t know if you will cope or not. Your have so far — history suggests you will continue.
“It’s your reality. There’s nothing you can do about it.”1
I’m a new parent and I recall being skeptical about the future that awaited me. It was not in my experience, my knowledge, to comprehend the changes that were on the way. I was a little anxious about all that I had to learn. Now, as a father I’ve coped as has my wife. Yes, it has been difficult. Late nights, crying without reason and some fun-and-games with work as well but we coped. At the time we had the resources we needed. It was not possible to define them beforehand but they were there and I take great comfort going forward knowing that.
As a point of learning I believe many companies could well do to think more in the moment than the future, especially with regards to Knowledge Management. Present Knowledge Management pushes strongly the capture of knowledge and storage against future needs. We fail to recognise and use the knowledge that we have now, for the moment. Once you begin to understand just how powerful we all are with our history and knowledge, it is a world of wonder indeed.