Reaching Fulfillment

I read something profound last week in a newsletter that stuck with me, so I’m passing it along. The opening hooked me because I feel much the same way. It’s as if I don’t have a satiation threshold when it comes to progress. She writes:

Noticing how the desire to be “more productive,” to be farther along, to be progressing faster, to have gotten more things done is constantly pulling me away from being fully present to the task at hand. There’s this energy of wanting to rush past what’s happening right now to get to something “better” in the future — an inability to relax into, and be fulfilled by, whatever is happening in the present moment.

That rushing past things also ties into the desire for more when I’m not rushing. As in, I am sitting on the beach, and all I can think about is how I want to sit on the beach more rather than acknowledging, “I am lucky to be sitting on the beach now.”

But the most profound thought comes near the end: “If we are always rushing towards fulfillment, we will never actually experience fulfillment.” As in, we will never get there because we will always be trying to reach end goals that continuously move (that we encourage to move) to keep us actively pursuing them.

I don’t know the answer beyond recognizing when I’m doing it and reminding myself to stop. But it gave me food for thought.