What Lies Ahead Keeps Me Moving, What Lies Behind Keeps Me Grounded

Daily writing prompt

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

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“The future is something I manage. The past is something I feel.”

That’s a really hard prompt for me because, honestly, it’s a tie.

When I think about the future, I think about me—not in a selfish way, but in a practical, grounded way. My future is about my health first and foremost. It’s about how strong I can stay, how mobile I can remain, and how much control I can keep over my own body as I age. It’s about my finances and making sure the decisions I made decades ago continue to give me freedom instead of stress. It’s about where I’ll live, how simple or complicated I want life to be, what kind of mornings I want to wake up to, and what kind of view I want out the window. It’s about the trips I still want to take, not because I need to check boxes, but because curiosity doesn’t retire. It’s about what car I’ll drive, not for status, but for comfort, safety, and the quiet pleasure of independence. The future feels like a series of levers I can still pull, choices I still get to make, and that matters to me.

But the past? The past belongs to people.

When I look backward, I don’t see plans or possessions. I see faces. I hear voices. I remember stories—some funny, some painful, some bittersweet enough that they still catch me off guard. The past is my youth, my parents, my siblings, friends who drifted away and friends who never did. It’s the mistakes that shaped me just as much as the wins. It’s the jobs, the risks, the moments where I had no idea at the time how important that ordinary day would turn out to be. The past is where the meaning lives. It’s where the inside jokes came from, where values were formed, and where lessons were learned the hard way.

The strange thing is, I don’t think one exists without the other. My future is steadier because of what the past taught me. And my past feels richer because I’m still building a future worth remembering. I don’t romanticize the past too much, and I don’t fantasize about the future either. I try to respect both.

So if you ask me which I think about more, the honest answer is: it depends on the day. Some days I’m planning, optimizing, and looking forward. Other days I’m remembering, smiling, and quietly grateful. And maybe that balance—one foot in what was, one foot in what’s ahead—is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.