One of life’s greatest pleasures is the joy of looking forward to something good.
We experience anticipation as the optimistic feeling that links our Past and Present into the Future, as an emotional guess of what is to yet to be. Anticipation is a reflection of both the hope and the confidence that moves us forward.
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We get to experience joy in the present for something yet to happen in the future. Anticipation comes from hope, confidence and efforts. I often anticipate seeing my mother and her wonderful garden. It motivates me to do what I can to help ensure that Future moment becomes my Present. |
Our Past is a museum of frozen moments — loops and snapshots, memories and events. We look back with the aid of photographs, recollections and memorabilia of all sizes, and always we look back through the fuzzy gauze of time. Even the finest historians, busily pouring their Present time into studying the Past, only recreate a framework of facts and results of a particular bit of time gone by.
The Present is dynamic, sometimes varied and widely available. But despite bloggers and 24-Hour news the human experience is still localized to ourselves and limited by our brains. Here in the Present, none of us have a perfect understanding or awareness of this moment.
We balance the Present’s precious moment between the action and feelings we have now with traces of the Past and imaginings of the Future. Sometimes, like historians, we use up much of our Present exploring the Past — occasionally to our benefit, with a new realization or understanding, and sometimes by having a sweet recollection.
But sometimes in our Present we get to experience a taste of something that has yet to happen. Anticipation is the optimistic time travel that bridges our Past and Present, and transports us into our very own Future — creating in us both feelings and images of a moment yet to come, for us. It is a jolt of joy, here in the Present for something has yet to happen in the Future.
Anticipation is part of living, and it varies in its type and magnitude. There can be the “body joy” of imagining having dinner, the “hard work joy” of visualizing a goal coming to completion, and the deep personal joy of being reunited with someone you love.
Anticipation of good things to come is threaded through the human race. It is deep in the core of every person — a manifesting of both hope and confidence.
Try-hard action items:
• Think about good things that are coming up — you can help yourself feel that positive anticipation.
• Do what you can today to help bring that Future moment to your Present.
• Honor the efforts of both yourself and others.
Experience the joy and time travel of anticipation.