I do not want much to fill my open heart with expectations and notions of the future. Gradually, in tiny steps, I am developing the habit of paying attention to what is happening right now and not searching through mirages of what might be in the future.
It is not easy to stay focused on the experience of walking through the kitchen, sitting down at my computer desk, lifting my cup of tea. My mind has been habituated to reach into and examine mirages of what might happen next or later in the day. Being able to anticipate the future is a noble human trait that has probably supported the survival of my ancestors. For me, it is time to unlearn some of the habits and skills of diving into mirages of what might lurk around the next corner, the next moment, the next encounter.
The more I am anchored in attention to the present, the less I am disturbed by changes in future plans. Things often do not turn out the way I imagined they might. If I have not clasped those future, unreal events I find it easier to flow with changing times.
Some planning is useful, but I am learning to recognize when I am invested emotionally in those orchestrated mirages. There is a point where the plans become an object of grasping, and it is difficult to deviate from the future I have not only imagined but even begun to live in.
Expectations easily cause me to grasp for what might be or could be. Many of those mirages I create involve how I will relate to something or someone. This might not be so much of a problem if I am imagining and anticipating my walk through the garden. A sudden rainfall might disperse that mirage, and hopefully this disruption of my grasping would be minor.
Much more risky is an expected experience of some kind of relatedness with another person. Humans are very changeable and unpredictable. They have a unique ability to resist what might be, and so someone else has a great power to disrupt any mirage I might have created about how we will relate to one another.
The more I pay attention to what is happening right now, the less I am drawn to invest attention and energy into what might happen in the future. The present can be a very effective distraction from mirages of future happenings.