You are not finished

Presence as the antidote to our Present and Past Bias

Where do you tend to place most of your focus – on the past, the present, or the future? You might tend towards thinking that your 8- or 9-hour working (and then caring, tending, adulting and hopefully some relaxing) days are spent mostly in the moment, or focusing on the immediate future. We might even acknowledge that we often don’t deliberately place our focus, so much as have it readily taken up by whatever comes our way, which usually bombards us from all angles.

But even though we might be absorbed in present or future-focused activities, chances are that our evaluations of ourselves in the present moment are based almost entirely on the past.

New Year’s resolutions, be they about quitting or starting specific habits or vaguely intending to do better at something in the year going forward, are inevitably laden with “I promised myself I’d do this last year”, or “This year will be better than last year (or even the last 10)”. When I turned 35 the other day, what first came to mind was: “I’m already 35!” before I considered, “Actually, I’m only 35.” It was a challenge to imagine where I’ll be in a year, or two years, or a decade from now. This is partly because I’ve recently started a personal sabbatical and so all routine has been suspended. One might think this is all the more reason to become more focused on future possibilities. Once again, though, it’s hard to see into the future without reference to where we’ve come from. (After all, there’s a helluva lot more material there to work with.) 

Of course, we don’t just judge ourselves based on what’s come before; we make all our decisions and judgements based on the past. Even though we have fantastic imaginations – indeed, that’s what defines us as a species – humans are notoriously bad at seeing into the future. We fall back on what’s right in front of us, which of course is a product of what’s come before us.

Interesting research has been done on “present bias”, but even to a lay person, evidence of it is everywhere. Think of how we save and invest our money – or rather don’t. One theory is that people don’t save for retirement because they struggle to visualise and hence “identify” with themselves in the future. Our future selves might as well be other people. Or, as one researcher put it, “saving is like a choice between spending money today or giving it to a stranger years from now”. In this particular study, a creative way in which they countered this particular cognitive bias was by showing one group of young subjects virtual-reality avatars of what they would look like at age 70. They then asked those subjects what they would do if they unexpectedly received $1,000. Subjects who had looked at pictures of their older selves said they would put away on average double the amount that the control subjects said they would.

If there were ever a good reason to play with FaceApp, other than for entertainment value or to freak oneself out, this may just be it. But in all seriousness, the trick of “beginning with the end in mind” – for example, by imagining what you would want your loved ones to say about you in your eulogy – has long been used to encourage people to be more positively goal-focused and, frankly, more virtuous.

To come back to our past-based self-judgement, I once came across a theory – or philosophy – that suggests we have a bias (inaccurate, in fact) towards seeing ourselves as “complete” in the present moment:

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. “

Daniel Gilbert – see his TED Talk.

It makes sense: in the absence of a clear future vision, what we can see right here and now seems to be where time stops, where our journey has led to. Hence, “I’m already 35” rather than “I’m only 35.” To me, this bias is as clear an indication as any of how much we look to the past. It’s also a symptom of our love of pattern, coherence and story. We want consistency. We want our “story” to make sense, to ourselves as well as to others. 

And no wonder we’re so hard on ourselves – we have expectations that we be perfect now, thinking “Why haven’t I achieved X or Y?”

They say the simplest definition of anxiety is fear of the future. I would say anxiety is also the product of the baggage of our past.

History is, of course, useful. It’s a sensible basis for understanding how we behave now and also for extrapolating and forecasting future behaviour. Also, we need, perhaps now more than ever, to be able to grapple with our orientation toward the future because it seems to be hitting us faster and faster. Imagining forward is scary; but it is, in fact, a skill in itself. Therefore, it can be honed and practised, and hence become exciting rather than terrifying. 

And now?

If the past is going to prompt us to change in a way that’s positive, and the present moment is where we have the power to begin any change and be clear-sighted about the future, then we need a space right here to be able to “put down” what’s gone before. We know we can plan the future by thinking about it, but without acknowledging what’s informed our present thinking, we’re just carrying the past forward along with all its judgements. Even examining the past takes place through lenses created by past thinking.

“Being here now” creates the space we need, creates that safety. You can’t stop time, but you can step out of the flow of past thinking and conditioning, and the judgments it creates.

You are not a finished product; you are only limited in your perspectives. Dan Gilbert, quoted above, continues with: “The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been. The one constant in our lives is change“.

To paraphrase Eckart Tolle, author of The Power of Now: the future never arrives; the past never happened. Honour the present moment.