I control my present and my future. Moreover, the two are inextricably linked. How I am in the present affects what will happen in my future. If I worry now, about something which will happen next week, not only will I ruin my present, my worries will almost certainly manifest themselves next week. [Karaj: What you sow, you reap.]
However, if I am calm now, my present is filled with calmness and serenity, and those qualities radiate into next week and beyond. I project my emotions into the future where they wait for me to arrive. If I project peace, then that is what awaits me. If I project fear then it is fear which greets my arrival.
This is not to say that I can go through life being blindly optimistic because it is the nature of our existence on the edge of chaos that things are unpredictable. It is quite okay for me to prepare myself for a worst case scenario because who knows what might happen in the future?
The important distinction is my emotional state when I do it. Am I calm or am I restless? If I can practice calmness, it will reproduce itself in both my present and my future. In addition, it will serve to alter my ‘Hurry Up’ driver, and as I slow down, my ‘Be Perfect’ driver will become less significant. Benefits all round. And it all begins with my breathing. [Karaj: Hard, physical work. Especially when you are tired.]