To be in the now

I spend a lot of the time thinking about the past, I spend a lot of time thinking about the future, but what about the present? Is the present not important too? Is it not the most important tense?

I have been reading blogs, mostly financial independence and early retirement, for a few years now and thinking about it now, a huge amount of the posts focus on what has passed and what will be. When will I be FI? How close am I to my goals? What could I have done in the past that would have made today better? This post is me following on from the thoughts in one of my previous posts, to give the past and future the time of day but to realise that we are not guaranteed any moment in time past this one. I want to learn from past failures and successes, but I don’t want to obsess over things I no longer have any control over. I want to look forward to the future and have goals and plans, but I don’t want to feel like the present is getting in the way of the future.

Am I living or am I waiting for those dividend payments?

One goal of mine is to achieve financial independence by increasing my passive income to the point were it equals my average expenses. I have decided that investing in the stock market is the right choice for me, concentrating mainly on yield and dividend growth. I started investing properly in 2014 and received my first dividend payment in January 2015. I remember my excitement at the time, not because it was a large amount, around £25 if I recall, but because it represented the beginning of something that could change my life. I wanted to spend my time how I wished, I wanted my time to be mine and not anyone else’s. That £25 represented something big for me and it always will be.