The Imagined Future

"He missed that too, and it hadn't even happened. He missed his imagined future." - Colin Singleton in An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

 I get ahead of myself. Being the person that likes to work towards a goal, it should come to no surprise. When I'm immersed in a conversation with a friend, my head will be full of questions like what I would be saying next, what question would be a good follow up, is it awkward to have a silent pause here? And it doesn't stop there. My brain continues on to "When will we be meeting again?" and in my head I'm already planning the next meeting to suit my mental schedule.

It seems that I live in the future. I live in an imagined future. In this imagined future, everything is exactly as I've planned. I'm exactly where I want to be and with exactly the people I want to be with. And that is where the problem begins...

I have an imagined future and it is idealistic. It's almost perfect. There are no problems. And that inadvertently is the problem.  Life isn't perfect (At least the present isn't). Because the present is uncertain. The variables are ever changing and whatever changes in my present will mess up my imagined future. I'm not a spontaneous person. I don't work well under last minute stress. I can't handle that. But the present seems to always call upon the need for spontaneity.

As of now, my imagined self in my imagined future is sitting comfortably in front of his computer typing away a script or a book or a poem where his wife and beautiful children waltzes into the room and the kids are jumping on the sofa screaming in delight. The wife leans on the table and strokes his hair asking how goes the progress. In the future, I wouldn't need anymore...

The problem is working towards that imagined future. As of now, I am nowhere near that imagined future. I don't have anything published, I don't have a significant other, and I don't have a fancy writing room. I am normally too caught up with trying to make my present match this imagined future that I miss out on opportunities. I miss out on potential friendships because the schema doesn't match. I miss out on golden opportunities, because it isn't part of the imagined future.

Am I losing what I never had to begin with? Can I hold on to what I never possessed?