forwards beckon rebound
When I was little, it was a common occurrence for me to mull over how being the youngest meant I would be the last one of my family on Earth.
Now, looking back on it, that fear seems quite ridiculous in light of the new people who have joined my family since then. However, I think it reveals a broader way of thinking that I’ve had since my youth—one that I don’t feel is exclusive to me.
I am terrified of the future. And because of this fear, I’m constantly looking at it: continuously looking away from the present, facing the future as if it will arrive any faster under my rule. I fear that when I lose sight of the potential for the future to be great, I’ll lose the ability for that to become reality.
It is a genuine lack of understanding of one’s scope of significance that allows for this. While I am capable of great things, how insignificant I am in controlling the potential for them to come so surely in such an unknown world. I believe that the control we need to exercise should stem not from managing the future, but from changing one’s understanding in the present. Exercising the ability to absorb the present as what it is - and not what it could be - is far more worthwhile.
And yet, the balance in that is always something that begs to be instituted, something I’m not entirely sure how to establish. I know I’m not calling for hedonistic presentism - the future matters, and what we do in the present affects that. Or rather, the intention behind our actions in the present affects our futures.
As if a sunflower has scent >-<
I call for myself to stop taking immediate occurrences so seriously. I have the authority to change what I can change, but those facets of life that are not under the jurisdiction of mere human effort should be let go. They need to be let go, if I have any intention of meeting the future with grace.
