The Future Doesn’t Exist (and That’s Kind of the Point)

Because ‘later’ isn’t coming the way you think it is.

The most expensive thing I ever bought was a vintage Dior leather jacket I didn’t wear for three years.

It hung in my closet, a sliver of buttery-soft black leather amidst a sea of cotton and wool. I’d see it every morning, brushing past it. Sometimes, when I felt courageous, I’d take it out, slip it on, and look at myself in the mirror. It fit perfectly. It made me look older, sharper, almost like someone whose life was slightly more composed than mine actually was. Then, inevitably, I’d take it off again. Fold it neatly. Hang it back up. I told myself I was saving it.

For what? I’m not sure. A future soiree that never materialised. A life that hadn’t officially “started” yet.

I remember buying it in a tiny vintage boutique on a rainy afternoon. The sales assistant told me it would “last a lifetime,” and I wanted to believe that meant my life was something substantial enough to invest in. I walked out of the shop clutching the bag like a madwoman.

I’ve come to realise that jacket was a physical manifestation of a dangerous habit I’d cultivated my entire life. I was purposely postponing enjoyment. It’s a contract I signed with a future I couldn’t control, promising myself that then—after the degree, after the promotion, after the kids are older, after I’ve decluttered the garage—I’d permit myself to truly live.

My grandmother had a china cabinet in her dining room, a beautiful piece of dark wood with glass-paned doors. Inside sat the “good china.” Not the everyday, chipped Corelle we used, but a delicate, floral-patterned set from Germany. It gathered dust for decades, brought out exactly twice a year: Easter and Christmas.

One afternoon, I found her carefully polishing a teacup. “It’s so beautiful, Nana,” I said. “We should use it more often.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “And what if it breaks? This is for special occasions.”

She died with that set nearly pristine, a museum collection of special occasions that never came. The tragedy isn’t that the plates survived, it’s actually that they were never truly used. She never experienced them in all their glory. They never held a casual Tuesday night pasta, a mug of hot chocolate for a heartbroken granddaughter, or a slice of “just because” cake. Their purpose was to be saved, and in that saving, their greatest purpose was lost. They were waiting for a future that never knocked on the door.

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I inherited this mentality. To save the best for later. I saved the fancy body lotion until it went rancid. I “saved” my vacation days until they piled up, unused. I saved conversations for the right moment, which often never arrived. I was treating my life like a guest room, keeping it perfectly tidy for visitors who never checked in, while I lived in the cramped quarters of my own constant striving.

The shift didn’t happen with a lightning bolt. It was a series of small cracks in my resolve.

It was my cousin, diagnosed with lung cancer, telling me over the phone, “The stupidest part is, I kept waiting for my life to begin. I was waiting to feel ‘established’ enough to relax. Now I’d give anything for one of those stressful, ordinary Tuesdays I wasted being anxious.” She died within a month.

It was the first warm day of spring last year. I was buried under deadlines, my shoulders knotted with tension, when I caught sight of that sunlight spilling through my window. It was that perfect, liquid gold. The old me would have put my head down and powered through, earning the evening, but a new, rebellious part of me thought, “That sun is now. Your deadline is a fiction. This moment is real.”

I closed my laptop. Left my phone and watch behind to charge. I walked to the park with my dog, bought an overpriced ice cream cone, and sat on a bench for a full and uninterrupted hour, doing nothing but feeling the sun on my face. I didn’t solve a single problem. I didn’t become more productive. But I was, for that hour, profoundly, unarguably happy. I had stolen a piece of my own future joy and spent it in the present. It felt like a crime, and it was utterly exhilarating.

A few weeks later, on a gray, drizzly Wednesday, I had a date with myself to go to a bookstore. I was pulling on my standard, comfortable sweater when I stopped. My hand hovered over the hanger. I looked at the leather jacket.

What are you waiting for?

I put it on. The weight of it was unfamiliar. The rain had that metallic scent the city gets just before summer, and someone was busking outside the station, playing an off-key version of Wonderwall. I walked home with a paperback tucked under my arm, my collar turned up against the wind, the leather protecting me from the chill, and I felt, for once… like myself. Not a future, more interesting version, but the current, imperfect, entirely alive me. I was finally permitting myself to enjoy my own life.

This isn’t a call to hedonism or financial irresponsibility. It’s not about quitting your job to backpack through Bali (unless that’s your genuine dream). It’s about the micro-permissions.

It’s using the “good” candles on a random Tuesday, just because I like the smell. It’s putting on the album I love and dancing in the kitchen while the pasta water boils. It’s calling the friend I miss right now, not when I have a “good reason” to. It’s reading the novel at 2 p.m., simply because I want to.

The truth is, I was always afraid that if I used it now, there wouldn’t be enough left for later. But the future is not a promised land where we finally cash in our coupons for happiness. The future is built from a long string of nows. If all my nows are spent in a state of preparation, what kind of future am I actually building?

That leather jacket now has a small scuff on the left sleeve from a bicycle ride I took on a whim. I look at that scuff and I see a story. Not an overpriced designer jacket I was too afraid to touch, but a life being lived.

I’d love to tell you I’ve stopped saving things entirely. I haven’t. There are still dresses waiting for “the right occasion” and books I’m saving for “when I have time.” But every time I catch myself doing it, I think of that jacket, and sometimes, that’s enough to change my mind.

I sometimes think of my grandmother’s china, still packed away in boxes after her funeral. I wish she’d poured herself tea in those cups on an ordinary Tuesday. I like to think, wherever she is, she’d tell me to wear the jacket.

Don’t save the good china. Don’t save the jacket. Don’t save your joy for a special occasion. Don’t wait. The most special occasion you will ever have is this one, right now. Your one, wild, and precious life is already in session.

Wear the jacket.