Live in the moment, they say. Plan for the future, they say. The mindset that people adopt can influence how they evaluate options and make choices, which makes a huge difference in the quality of life they live. For example, a Pace student is walking along John St. and decides to have a snack, possibly focused on finding something tasty, until he passes a gym or health food store. On one hand, this person may think about the present and decide to eat a Twinkie to satisfy their hunger, but on the other hand this person may wait to eat something healthy to avoid getting the “freshman 15.” I have had many instances in my life where I have spent a lot of time weighing two contradictory points of view. In many cases this has left me feeling ambivalent, because instinctively I would rather be peaceful and productive. I want to feel awake and centered in the here and now, while still engaging. As I said before, too much of anything is a bad thing, the same goes for planning. There is such a thing as over-planning. People often become paralyzed by the endless efforts to perfect their plan, trying to make sure there is no possibility of error. They forget that nothing in life is perfect and that even the most detailed plan is still hypothetical, nothing is constant. They waste time perfecting their plans and in the meantime do nothing to implement them. It's better to get up and start doing something than to spend the present dreaming about the future. The future will always be unknowable and uncertain; if we are obsessed with the future, we will miss out on the pleasures and possibilities of the future