The Truth About Forever

In my time away from home, I have found that I have had a lot of time to myself, naturally. And with this time, although I’ve spent a lot of it sightseeing and whatnot, I have also done some serious thinking. Since it seems like talking aloud is a universal “no-no,” I have taken to thinking things out it my head. Usually it leads to daydreaming or spacing out, but sometimes I find nuggets of wisdom. One went a little like this: (Keep in mind that I am thinking to myself, and that is perfectly normal) “I can make all these plans that sound flawless, but at some point, I have to be honest with myself. Drop the pretenses, forget about trying to fulfill the (never-ending) expectations of others, and just lay it all down. This is my life. There are choices that need to be made that only I can make. If I just let every aspect of my life be decided by others, can I really even say I’m living? If I can’t live with my own choices and consequences, then I am nothing more than an extension of someone else’s life.” And as I lay here trying to sleep, thoughts of the future are doing their best to keep my busy. I’m somewhere between letting the future “worry for itself” and just wanting to know what I want to do with the next few stages of my life. And though I am at peace, these thoughts have a way of becoming a nuisance if I allow them. Is it too much to ask to just let me enjoy each breath? Everyone’s always looking ahead so far into the future instead of appreciating today. I’m not talking about fretting about the things that are already promised to us in the future, I am referring to all of the uncertainties that lie ahead that people spend so much time now worrying about. Believing that if you didn’t do this or that now, that it would make everything you had to deal with in the future more difficult is a common mindset to have. This is not a negative way of thinking per se, but there should be a limit… And we wonder why people have problems with stress and are mentally and physically exhausted at such a young age. On the flip side, you can probably think of people who are stuck in the past; and that’s not a position you want to find yourself in either. There may always be questions and problems for the future that need to be solved, and regrets or attachments to the past that are hard to let go of, but if we get too caught up in always trying to figure out what is to come or reminiscing about what has already happened instead of focusing on today, then it is more like we are merely existing instead of living. We are not a walking math algorithm that is constantly trying to solve for infinity, so why are we trying to calculate every variable of life? If life is like a flower, then our past would be a time of preparation before we bud – it is what makes us who we are when we do blossom. And our future would be just that, our future. Whether the flower will blossom more or whither and die, we don’t know. So why can’t we just appreciate the past, hope for the future, and enjoy the moment now when we are most beautiful ( and I’m not even talking about physical beauty)? You know, carpe diem: capture the moment, live for today. There was a saying that I used to hear often as a child, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God’s gift, that’s why we call it the present.” Instead of worrying about something that is not even tangible yet, I choose to find joy in every moment. Ah, but first I’d like to “find” some sleep.