Tuesday, July 30, 2024

I’ve been thinking about our collective, strange, seemingly ever-present and unusual mixture of ennui and agitation about the state of things now and where they are headed.  Bestselling books have been written about the cause of this, and I don’t disagree with many of their conclusions about technology, disconnectedness, and institutional disappointments.  But what is the nature of our own individual sense of discomfort, and what can we do about it?

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.

If you are anxious you are living in the future.

If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

― Lao Tzu

Those words are simple, more accurate than we’d like to admit, and helpful to remember.

My brain loves to travel backward and forward in time, especially when I’m not managing it properly. Does yours?  While I don’t especially veer towards depression, my backward looks often bring up a ton of nostalgia.  In fact, I’m one of the more nostalgic people you’ll know.

When imagining the future, anxiety isn’t usually my first emotion.  Rather, I tend to become an investigator and pre-mitigator.  This mind loves to look around future corners, map out potential outcomes and search for bogeys that can bite – in an attempt to neutralize negatives in advance.  All in hopes of charting a course for smooth sailing.  It’s exhausting.

It’s very hard to stay in the present.  Especially in today’s society.  Yet when you check in, you’ll often find you’re actually doing OK right now.  You might even be pleased with the present, when you stop in and pay it a visit.  You might realize your needs in the moment are only miniscule: a drink of water, a shift in the chair, maybe a snack, the pet of a dog.  Usually, you don’t need much more in the now.

Part of what is complicating the present is election season.  Also known as Silly Season.  As it has always been and probably will always be.  You can see much of this time travel tension play out among the candidates.

It seems we have a set who wants us to rewind … to something, somewhere, and at some time that came before.  We have another set that wants us to fast forward to … something, somewhere, and sooner than we might otherwise arrive there.  Each camp makes their sales pitch, painting the picture of what was, or what could be, to help influence your choice in the now.

That’s OK, that’s part of their job.  As our prospective leaders, we want them to think about and pitch their vision. We want them to draw roadmaps toward the places we collectively decide to go.  The trouble comes when a false sense of urgency gets attached to those efforts.

A sales message, any sales message that keys up your nostalgia or anxiety – whether it’s for a political direction of a nation or a cool new gadget – is simply trying to sell you their product.  That’s the nature of it.

Sometimes the only way to fail as a comparison shopper is to mistake routine choices for actual emergencies.

Our world in the real estate industry is a vibrant mix of past, present and future.  It’s one of the things that keeps the work fresh, interesting and challenging.  I think those of us who work within it do a great job of balancing each of those three elements and staying sane.

Maybe we can import those skills we use to balance past, present, and future in our professional lives over into our lives as buyers and as voters too.

It’s OK if you want to fast forward sometimes.  Or rewind.  It’s natural to fall back at times to regroup and it’s also OK to blaze forward in others.  We’re only human after all.

But let’s also try to remember to focus on the right now as much as possible.   And give it an honest assessment of where we actually stand.  It’s a good way to limit anxiety and despair. From that place, we can more calmly and accurately evaluate a sales pitch, for whatever the product.

Until Next Time,

Mary Schuster
Chief Knowledge Officer
October Research, LLC