In The Screwtape Letters by C.S Lewis, it talks of how humans react to the past, present, and future and the downsides of focusing too much on one of them. If we look toward the future, we get scared; if we look to the past, we get caught up in what already happened; Lewis says that present is preferable, but it still requires a balance because if you focus only on the present, we can never learn or be prepared. I think that we need to learn to balance the past, present, and future in our daily lives and keep from focusing too much on one of them.

To incorporate the past into our lives we need to remember those who came before us. We need to look to their examples and decide who we want to be and what we want to do based on who they already were and what they already accomplished. Not only this, but we should look to our personal pasts. We need to remember our mistakes so we don’t make them again, but not dwell on them so we can progress and become better.

If we look solely to the future, we rob ourselves of learning what happened before us or earlier in our lives and miss what is happening now. We get so caught up in what will happen we miss what has happened and is happening. It causes fear in our lives because the future is unknown. We do, however, need to be prepared for what is to come. We cannot simply disregard the future and pretend like it isn’t coming. We need to learn all we can and prepare all we can now so we will be ready for what is to come.

If we live too much in the present we will forget those who came before us and not care to learn of them. We also won’t be prepared for the future and find ourselves not knowing what to do. But, we can find the balance. Live right now, enjoy your life right now, and pay attention to those who are part of your life right now. Keep learning of what has happened so you can make your present and future better, prepare yourself so when the future becomes the present you know what to do, and work on bettering yourself now.

Yours truly,

Publius