Osho – The result-oriented mind is a stupid mind. It goes on sacrificing the present for the future. Sacrificing! – and the sacrifice is absolutely non-creative. It goes on postponing. This is not respect for the future – it is just a way to avoid the present. The result-oriented man always puts his hopes in the tomorrow. He simply hopes – he never lives. He thinks he will live. Tomorrow he is going to live, or the day after tomorrow, or in old age; or after this life, in heaven, he will live some day.
And while he is thinking and dreaming and hoping, life is slipping by. He is not living it – he is indifferent to life itself. He lives in a sort of apathy… uninterested. His interest is in the future. His interest is in the goal, not in the journey, so he moves amidst beautiful scenes but he lives in apathy.
He cannot see the trees, he cannot see the birds. His whole mind is fixed somewhere beyond the hills. When he has arrived there he is going to relax and live and see the beauty of nature – and the beauty of nature is all around him! Right this moment a breeze is passing and touching him – but he is apathetic. A flower is calling – he has sent his message with the fragrance – but the man is dead to it. A bird is inviting, but he has not heard it. His whole mind is focused somewhere in the tomorrow.
Be respectful towards the future but never try to live in the future – live in the present In fact that’s what I mean by being respectful towards the future. And love the process so deeply that if there is no goal it doesn’t matter.
For example, you are listening to me, I am talking to you. If nothing happens out of it, that is not the point. But I loved it while I talked to you. While I talked, only you existed for me in this whole world and everything else disappeared. While I talked to you I really talked to you. It was as if that were the very goal of my life. And if you listen to me also with that passion and intensity, then who bothers whether anything happens out of it or not? Not that it is not going to happen. If you have been so passionately in the moment something is bound to happen out of it because in that passion, seeds are sown in the heart. They will sprout one day or other, but that is not relevant in any way. One has not to think about it.
Source – Osho Book “God Is Not For Sale”