Pretty Much Lost

When you live in the moment, savouring everything in the now, living life by the day, intensely, passionately, you stand the risk of becoming really short-sighted about the actual length and breadth of life, isn't it?

I'm not advocating astute foresight, clairvoyance or being always anal about planning ahead. I'm just wondering if our devoted inclinations towards acts of impulse, our tendency to want a quick high out of short-term experiences, and our perennial need to benefit from any situation quickly, is eventually going to turn us into self-destructive, thoughtless, hedonistic automatons. Is that not an insult to the significance in being alive? And worse, by forgetting, or simply not trying, to find meaning, truth, and real happiness in life, are we letting ourselves degenerate into something less human, even?

Previously, when I had more time to ponder over my future and develop a vision of my long-term goals, I became overwrought about how difficult it would be to realise my dreams, and therefore lapsed into a rather devious, vicious cycle of compromise - one could certainly see it as self-defeatism, pessimism, cowardice, procrastination, plus a lack of drive and motivation to get down to it. I was just not willing to throw all else out the window and sacrifice it all, maximising suffering to achieve results which will always be clouded with uncertainty. I could not devote myself to my own cause.

I cannot devote myself to my own cause.

Is this a rather extreme state of low self-esteem, with self-destructive tendencies heaped on for good measure, or an enlightened state of consciousness where I know selflessness is the key to real happiness? Or is this a rather warped state of self-absorption, really?

Presently, my work possesses me, and it seems that I have found some kind of wholesome fulfillment in this whole experience (my greatest fear is that it may not last very long before some tragedy befalls me and it all has to end) which is strongly nudging me to alter myself to better myself. All of a sudden it seems imperative for me to solve my own greatest problem - myself.

So I need to set new personal goals, which, though not completely incongruent to those since-discarded dreams, visions, or long-term goals (perhaps not so much discard as disregarded, I guess), are exhausting in their demands on me. And these new goals will serve as obstacles on the path towards growth and development in life ahead.

I'm tired enough to want to stop being in the near-constant state of self-reflection I used to be in. That was where everything in life, all experiences, could be rationalised, analysed, philosophised on. Right now it seems I operate only on a certain level of consciousness, shallower, less introspective, taking on whatever circumstances throw in my face.

I used to only live in the past or the future. Always ruminating on possibilities and regrets. There was always some vision to look forward to, vague and un-reachable in the distance, yet fascinating, always worth more thought, more thought.

Now, I live in the present. In the moment. And it seems I've stopped thinking so much. All those visions of the future have disappeared into a blank void, creating a strange, serene uneasiness in my psyche.

I feel lost.