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Do You Want To Know Your Future?

Do you agree with the following Buddhist proverb?

If you want to know your past - look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions.

Future Your To You Do

The Buddhist proverb and the title of the post are two different things. The proverb is a statement which, in my opinion, is completely true. It's also a good segway into explaining why I wouldn't like to know my unknown future... and, indeed, why it wouldn't be a good idea for anyone to know their unknown future.

Notice I use the term "unknown"?

This differentiates from the "known" future (pretty simple, really). Example, sometime today, I know my future will include being at a supermarket. A teenager will know his future will be as the owner of a car, because he's saving money for the eventuality. A student will know his future is to be a journalist, because that's what he/ she is studying to be.

In all of the above examples, the Buddhist proverb can be seen in action. It is the present actions of the people in the examples that give rise to their knowledge of the future: the teeneager is saving money, the student is studying relevant courses, and I opened my fridge and cupboards to find there's no food in the house!

These examples aren't really knowing the future; it can be explained by "Cause and effect". (However, even this is not absolute! I might be killed in a car accident on the way to the supermarket, or meet a friend and go to a cafe instead.)

But, what if I did know the "unknown"? What If I did know that I was going to be killed in a car accident on the way to the supermarket? That would influence my present actions, and I wouldn't leave the house! Sooner or later, though, I'd have to leave the house, because the alternative would be to starve to death. So, I'd become a raving, paranoid nut-case wondering whether the next car I passed was the car that would end my life. That wouldn't be a great way to live!

Knowing the unknown future is best left to the realms of fantasy and science fiction writers. Such things as "Time paradoxes", "Probability factors" and "Cause and effect syndromes" would come into play. By knowing the future, conscious and unconscious actions you would have made which shaped that future would change. Changing those actions would change the future.

Wouldn't it be nice to know that you're going to win lotto next week? However, your lotto win was determined by you buying a ticket at a particular place at a particular time, and that was determined by your every movement between viewing the future and buying that ticket. By knowing you would win lotto, you would also have to know every action you made leading up to that win, and in the minutest of details. You would then have to duplicate those actions exactly!

Again, you'd become a raving paranoid nut-case!

Okay, now let's argue that you know you're going to win lotto and that it doesn't matter diddly-squat what you do in the intervening time... you're still going to win lotto, because that's your future, and the future doesn't change. Well, apart from making all the Buddhists look rather silly, it would also make you look like a thoughtless cretin.

And this is my point (rather long winded way of getting there. Sorry about that) Knowledge the unknown future will rob you of your desires, it will rob you of your aspirations, it will steal your dreams. You would become an automaton, simply reacting to stimuli, certain in the knowledge of your future. You wouldn't have to work toward that future, because, hey, it's going to happen anyway.

Not only would you become a raving paranoid nut-case, you'd become boring as well!