The past wants to be loved, the future heard and the present lived - such is the nature of time
We are subject to much force throughout our lives. I myself can feel this resistance in much of what I do. A principle I try to live by is to follow the path of least resistance - to go with the flow of the way of life. I also believe that life is what you make of it, and that our actions shape these paths for our future. Living with only the present in mind, while admirable, may lead to greater resistance down the line.
No, future demands our attention. It forever hangs over us like a clouded sky. These skies bear down an immeasurable weight upon me, and while I may not feel it strongly, it is ever present. The reason I have started meditating on this weight that it would seem I have lost some sense of action within my education. With the things I feel strongly about in life and that demand my attention, I sometimes feel shy on time, making me feel a pressing urgency in doing my homework.
This has led to me ultimately skipping out on some needed practice when studying for courses, preferring broad understanding over mastery of a given subject. When doing problems, I may feel bored with the simplicity of some of these problems, making me skip these excercises, feeling I could spend my time more wisely. This is the loss of action I am talking about. It is as if in every decision I make in a day, a ticking clock sits in the back of my mind, reminding me that I should spend as much time as necessary, but no more. This leeds to me rushing through things when I should be taking my time.
This is also a problem I face when taking tests. I try to get as much done as quickly as possible, and end up being sloppy in my execution of some parts. As I often understand each concept fairly well, I can suffer the penalty of this carelesness without greater consequences, but I do feel that I am underachieving in that regard. Focus should be sole, and although I can eliminate corporal distraction, the mind keeps reminding me of the future, and it weighs me down.
How then, should I go about preventing this from happening. I feel that this is a consequence of my style of working. I tend to try and work through as much of my tasks as possible such that I have a buffer in case I would suddenly want/need to spend time on something else. While good in practice, it leads to me not having designated blocks during which I work on certain tasks, leading me to skip through things more easily. If instead I were to give myself blocks of time during which I would focus solely on one thing, I would be able to work through everything without feeling like I am delaying something else.
This does require a certain degree of trust in the flow of my life, and that is something I need to work on a little. Currently, I have great trust in myself from day to day, but in the grand scheme of things, I cannot let a ball go and roll on its own. Deciding to work on a per-day basis on given tasks means having to trust that the work that I exert will be enough even in the greater scheme of things.
To illustrate this, and let it weigh heavy in my mind, I look at this shift in perspective in the context of an orchestra. Each passing moment, I need to play my part, and only that part. Previously, it could feel like I was multitasking by being both conductor and player at once. But to create a true symphony, I need to trust my past self as conductor and follow its lead, pouring my soul only in playing my instrument.
The melody I play should be of self and not of future!