How will you ever get by? Tomorrow is rushing at you like a tidal wave, ready to engulf you, mind and soul, until you drown in a sea of uncertainty. Everybody feels this way at some point in their lives, when it seems as if nothing is certain and the floor has been removed from the bottom of your life. We strain and pull and clamber about, trying to see past our circumstances to what lies ahead. We feel that if only we could see every stone before we tripped, then we would never have to worry about anything ever again. Still, even if we could see every stone that laid in out path, we would still worry about all the twigs that we were sure we had missed.
Worry is not the same as caution. When people are cautious, they are aware of what is about them, and respond accordingly. When people worry, they stare at things that only exist in their minds, and stumble into the things that they missed. They spend all their energy trying to forestall what might not happen, that they forget to focus on what is happening. What is happening now is real, what might happen is not. If you convince yourself that all your worries and ideas of the future are true, then you will not be able to do anything with the events that are happening to you at this very moment. The future is not some impending wall that you cannot avoid. The future is just the present that hasn’t happened yet. Your life has been, and always will be, in the present.
Life is a grand experience. There are always wonderful things to see, and if you have your eyes open, you will see them all. The future will unfold, just like it always has, and all the triumphs and struggles of today will wash away into all the present that had become the past. If you don’t pay attention, then you will miss it, and your life will only be a series of memories, moments you can no longer touch, events that you wished you had touched when you had the chance. Life should not be lived through a photo album, it should be lived as it comes. If you make an effort to remove worry from your life, you will do just that. So please, let the future go. Your life is waiting.
Rebekah Webb is a versatile writer who lives in California.
