Eternity perspective vs. finitude perspective

I know that I’m going to live forever. And yet, I often act, think and feel as if this is the only life that I’ve got. And so I get into FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) mode. And it doesn’t do anything good for me to think this way. Because this causes me to live in the future instead of in the now. It causes me to think of what I don’t have instead of what I have. It causes me to worry about what I may never have. In short, it causes me to push my happiness into the future.

I think that it has something to do with that my brain is wired to think of existence as finite in an absolute sense. Is it wired like this from birth, or have I been conditioned to view life in this manner? I don’t know. 

A funny thing in all of this, is that it is not just about adopting the eternity perspective because it’s the right one. Paradoxically this perspective will also make us happier in the now. Because when we know this, we shift focus from the results to the choices that we make. Our choices may affect eternity, but the results in this life won’t. 

Something just struck me. There is a moral philosophy called utilitarianism, which basically says that we should strive for the best outcomes. That this should be our guiding moral principle. An obvious problem with this philosophy, is that we can allow morally reprehensible things, if it leads to the highest amount of good in the end. But there is more. I, personally, have landed in a moral philosophy of coherence. And from a finite perspective, maybe utility trumps morals. But not from an infinite perspective. If we look beyond this life, it becomes much more clear why certain values cannot be broken, even if they lead to the maximum amount of good for the maximum amount of people in this life.

A little side-note there. Let’s continue.

When I look at life from a finite perspective it’s so easy to get lost in thoughts about all the time that I’ve wasted on nonsense. But from an infinite perspective, all that really counts is who I choose to be today and tomorrow and what I choose to do with my time from now on. And whether I succeed or fail ultimately doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that what I do feels meaningful. That what I do feels like what I’m meant to do. Then it’s up to God what results it leads to in the world. If I can look back at my life and say that I lived it to the best of my ability, both when it comes to morals and efforts, from an infinte perspective there is no failure.