Looking at the times and the world stage, it’s easy to become discouraged about the state of affairs we are currently in. Political antics, high debt, and crime are running rampant. People are struggling to make ends meet, and the overall education system is busted. As for me, well, I just say my prayers to get through the day. Yet, in spite of all that is happening, a small, stubborn part of me refuses to give up. I have learned that in an instant, things can change for the better or worse. Yes, with a roll of the figurative dice, things can change.
I know, it’s easier said than done, always trying to be mindful of the present moment, but if you think about it, it’s a passing moment that will never return again. I think about when I was a child and how much I wanted to be an adult back then. Now that I’m an adult, I miss being a child sometimes because being a child was simpler and more carefree. Now, after having experienced adulthood, I can say for me it does have its perks, but with those perks come responsibilities. (Responsibilities that I’m not ashamed to admit I don’t want but that naturally come with the territory). I think my parents knew things could be rough for me and my siblings when we grew up…at least that’s what I imagine, which is why they were so adamant about us doing things their way.
Anyway, I’m kind of going off on a tangent. The point I’m trying to make is that who knows what the future holds? One day you can be doing well, and then the next, things change. Or better yet, one day things could seem dismal, and then the next things start working in your favor. I’ve come across plenty of true-life stories where a person wasn’t expecting something to happen that did and it completely changed the course of their lives. In life, we have very little control over the outcome of things; we have free will, and I’m thankful for that, but control over our choices shouldn’t be confused with control over the consequences of those decisions. And I don’t care who you are; that’s one thing that every human must come to terms with.
So for me, I choose to learn from the past, embrace the present, and hope for the best for the future because I know that in the blink of an eye, things can change. Years of planning and preparation could have been done in vain if the outcome of those plans just wasn’t in my path of life. I just think about the last decade of my life and how things I wasn’t expecting to happen did and how much I had to adjust to change…And in most cases, it wasn’t gradual changes but changes in an instant, changes I wasn’t prepared for at all. But up to this point, thankfully, I survived, and I’m still here.