I attempted to start a podcast over the past few months. I feel like it’s still something I’d like to release: create something beautiful that the world can learn and grow from. At the moment, I’m swamped and therefore I had to put the podcast on hold for a bit. I definitely want to revisit this prospect sometime.

To put it briefly, the podcast is about people’s dreams and goals. Where one sees themselves in the future. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be career aspirations, though it might be a majority of the interviews I take on. I’m interested in everything my guests want to do. Run a marathon? Buy a house? Write the next Great American Novel? These are all wonderful and valid goals.

But it got me thinking. What are MY goals? What do I want to be when I grow up? What kind of career will I have? What do I want to do with the MBA I’m earning? How will my past experiences build into my future identity? Where do I want to live? What are my goals for fitness? Spiritual health? Mental well being?

And as I thought, I realized I only had a few of those questions answered. And I’m okay with that.

It’s not a new concept for me, but it’s something I’ve been meditation on for quite some time recently:

My future self depends on the actions and thoughts of my current self. There’s an old saying that goes: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.” What I do now will influence the unknown for ages to come.

The present moment is the razor’s edge of time, slicing through both future and past like a red-hot machete through a stick of I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter.  Buddhist writings sometimes refer to mind-moments, the conceptually shortest possible division of time.  It’s said there are sixty-four mind moments in a finger snap.  I couldn’t care less whether this has any scientific value in modern terms– it’s just a poetic attempt to illustrate the fleetingness of the present moment.  In the present moment there isn’t even time to complete a single thought.  In the present moment not even perception has time to occur.  Action alone exists.

Brad Warner in “Hardcore Zen”

And that’s scary sometimes. But then I look back and assure myself that the past is nothing more than a series of nows. I’ve weathered some serious storms. I sometimes joke around that I’ve been through hell so many times that Satan himself has a mug in Hell’s Kitchen with my name on it. But as Winston Churchill said “If you’re going through hell, keep going!” You might find Paradise at the exit. Or at least a purgatory?

In the next several posts, I intend to take you through some of my goals and dreams.