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Good
morning <$firstname$>,
Would
you like to know what the future has in stall for you ?
In fact, the whole world is obsessed with the idea of
knowing what will happen tomorrow, next week or in ten years
time. The movie
“Paycheck” starring Ben Affleck is a riveting
thriller about the past and the future – and a huge
paycheck he never gets.
Analysts
make a fortune predicting the ups and downs of the stock
exchange. We watch the weather report to see whether we
can go to the beach on Sunday and try to pick 6 out of 49
numbers to win our first or second million – but none
of these systems work with a great degree of accuracy.
In
‘Paycheck’, Ben Affleck is a clever computer engineer
who develops rip-off computer products for high-tech corporations,
but must always have his short-term memory erased after
each assignment so that his employers can claim the copyright.
In his job for the “Allcom” company, it takes
him three years to build a machine that can look into the
future – and is promptly swindled out of his paycheck.
But
he knew what was coming and after his memory is erased,
Uma Thurman as his biologist girlfriend helps him to retrace
what happened in order to prevent a global catastrophe.
That’s the plot, but why am I writing this ?
What
struck me was a little sentence in the dialogue: “Once
you know the future, you don’t have a future anymore”.
I
had never thought of that before, but it’s true. What
is it that we call the future ? In my view, it is the sum
total of all the interactions we still have to experience
to fulfill the aspirations which we think will make us a
more successful person.
In
other words, the future – by definition – includes
an element of uncertainty, and if you take that away, you
don’t have a future. All you would have is a path on
which you go through the motions, but what for ? And where
to ? Life as we know it on this planet would be meaningless
if we knew the destination of every road we travel, the
outcome of every action we take.
We
tend to forget that in reality time doesn’t exist.
It is just a concept – a very useful and necessary
one - that human beings have to live by in their limited
consciousness to manage a number of experiences and learn
from them. We cannot see both sides of the same coin at
once, only one after the other. Even a mirror doesn’t
help, believe me.
That’s
precisely why we are so intrigued by the future - we want
to know it all, right now : What’s going to happen
? Will we succeed or fail in whatever we are doing ? This
curiosity is driving us forward.
We
all know some people who couldn’t be bothered, of course
: ‘Who cares what happens tomorrow, as long as I have
a good time today’. We sometimes admire them because
on the surface, they don’t seem to have any doubts
in their ‘happy-go-lucky’ lives. If you are not
driving your challenges, however, you will be driven and
confronted with them – life will not stand still for
you.
And
those who constantly fear that some disaster is around the
corner ? Looks like they magically attract every manner
of misfortune and not make any progress at all - and yet
they too will eventually learn from their continual setbacks.
There
is plenty of evidence that some gifted people can in fact
look into the future, though – what is it that they
see then ? If there is no past and no future, all that really
exists is the present moment, and each of these moments
literally has limitless possibilities, more than we realize.
What we get an occasional glimpse of is potential, a likelihood
of events, but nothing cast in concrete.
The
big chance we owe to ourselves is to shape that potential
into something worthwhile and exciting and learn from it,
with everything we’ve got. Since we all bring something
unique to the party, imagine the endless variety !
Paycheck
or no paycheck : life today is the real thriller, and I
have my very own. So do you.
Until
next time, all the best from :
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