Future-Tripping

This phrase refers to avoiding a focus on the present moment.  Sometimes it shows up as fantasy.  Other times it is focused on a resentment, fear, anxiety, remorse and other negative feeling, rarely about real factual events. The present moment is thus filled with preoccupations.  When we "catch" ourselves in this mode of mood or fantasy, we might ask, "Why am I doing this?"  Why am I so uncomfortable with me as me in the here and now?  When I ask this question of myself, I find that I am uncomfortable in m own skin.  I am too ordinary, or too something else that does not appeal to me.  This is not as bad as it sounds.  Why?  Because it is often followed by a "spiritual awakening."  It is OK to be me.  I am loved by God.  My fantasy me is not loved by God, since fantasy is not real.  Now in the present moment of reality, without all these negative feelings, I often begin to think of some good that I can do.  Example: one day, on the way to the bank, I was in the "not real" world.  I awoke to the present moment of reality.  I am me, loved by God as I am.  Then I remembered someone who mentioned a special white tea that she liked.  After the bank, I went to the nearby tea store and picked up a small bag of this tea.  She was delighted.  Later, we shared a cup of "present moment white tea."  The present moment has such great possibilities.  Future-tripping not so much.