It is not difficult to drop what we are doing and focus on different points in time. In fact, it is, in my opinion, one of the most elementary things to do. 

If I were to ask you to think of three things you did yesterday, it would only take you a few seconds to come up with your answer. We are trained to focus on independent points in time. 

Take school, for example. Every single one of the classes we take is created to help us plan for the future while focusing on the past. We take several hours out of our day to learn about everyone that came before us rather than our own generation.

Every mistake we are taught to avoid only leads to the creation of a different mistake. Once we make those mistakes, we spend the rest of our day, or even week, focusing on how it could have been better. 

I avoid the present because I am too focused on the test I failed or the minuscule mistakes I made. I ignore my trivial successes. I wind up living in this never-ending cycle of past-faults.

However, the past is not the only thing that seems to come back to haunt us. Even though it has not happened yet, it almost seems like the future mocks anyone living in the present. 

The questions constantly float around my mind: Where are you going to college? Do you have a job yet? What do you want to do when you graduate from college? But, I never seem to know the answers. 

There are so many things to worry about, and they should not even occur for at least a few years. 

Even in school, we have to be focused on both the past and the future.  

As each assignment is handed out, we plan our nights accordingly; while we take the time to look into our future, we miss the entirety of our present. 

The students that prepare for their classes and write everything down in advance tend to be the ones that are more likely to succeed in school. 

Life seems to be set up in a way that does not allow anyone to think about perfecting the present. 

We follow the examples of everyone before us because it is what we were taught to do. We have stopped creating our own paths because we are too busy looking ahead to leave the trail.

It is society’s fault that we live these formulated lives; however, it is not their fault that we live them as plastic pawns.