The Future

Where are you off to? Image from here.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I was kept up (in a nightmarish way) by thoughts about the future. I guess when you reach a certain age, the future becomes so close to possible that you feel pressured to measure up to the vision you have of it in your head. 

For instance, it was so much easier to imagine a bright future for yourself when you were fifteen, and there weren't a lot of self-limiting thoughts and hurtful experiences to contend with. Then, when thoughts of the future danced in your head it was all brightness and laughter and fulfillment at living up to your perceived true potential. 

Now, thoughts about the future are more likely to send you running in the opposite direction. Now, when your future is practically in the same breathing room as your present, you are made to understand how your millions of tiny decisions have amalgamated into the drama (or non-drama) that is your life. You are made to face the possibility of mediocrity, and if not that, of failure. You are made to assess the probability that you have turned into the very thing you have been working against.

If you are lucky, then the success will outnumber the failures, the joys will outweigh the hurts. But I suppose, even when your "growing up" is over and done with, there is still a future for you to look forward to. How you will continue on towards that can only be determined by how well you get through today though.

I have danced with my future so many times; I have tried to lead it with my own clumsy feet on more than one occasion. I have to keep on relearning that I can only let fate lead me where it will. I don't know if it is the same for other people, who decide what they will be and become just that (where are you people, and how do you do it?), but I have always been kept on my toes by the switches and twirls that fate has thrown my way. I have been a communications student, an advertising lackey, a law student, an executive assistant, a scriptwriter, a show producer, a magazine writer, and a bar failure. Now, I am an attempting fictionist trying to once again map out my fate. If anything, I am an expert at nothing save for starting over.

In the recent months, I have been laying the foundation for the new path that I plan to follow. I have enrolled myself in a master's program with the hopes of finishing it so I can teach at the University level. I did it because I read that university professors and lecturers are part of the sought after careers in the countries that I hope to emigrate to in the future. Imagine my surprise when I revisited the said article and realized that it was no longer as in demand as it was merely a few months ago. I tossed and turned marveling at how futile it all seemed. What am I even doing, gambling away my remaining youth (again) like this? I really don't know.

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The only thing I have to go by is the knowledge that I am enjoying what I am doing, for now. Whether it means something or not, or whether I can make something out of myself because of it remains to be seen. Does everybody feel this uncertain all the time, or is it just me?

If it doesn't pan out, I suppose I shouldn't be too terrified. The unfamiliar no longer feels as terrifying as it used to be. Like I said, I am an expert at starting over.