I Don’t Know What’s Going to Happen Next - And You Don’t Have to Either

One thing I have had to admit and accept as I have experimented with finding faith - and I mean deeply accept - is the simple and disturbing fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. 

Maybe it’s our obsession with stories and storytelling. By entertaining ourselves through epic tales and blockbusters across the ages, maybe humanity has fallen into having the counterproductive expectation that we should know what will happen next. Anxious people are known to watch the same shows or read the same books over and over again as a form of self-soothing. I might argue that all of us are anxious, in part because our culture is basically training us to be. 

Not until this writing did it occur to me that maybe we all feel a little bit entitled to know what happens next. Who knows - that’s just a brand new working theory. What I do know is that I walked around for a few decades making myself miserable trying to predict the future and failing utterly. I am 0 for 2 hundred million on predicted outcomes. I also barely even recorded any of the wonderful things, events, or people happening in my life during that time by being preoccupied with complete and utter bullBLEEP. 

The great luxury of finding, having, and keeping faith is that we become willing to release our stranglehold on the future and just let it breathe. I am now okay with just seeing what happens. I trust that my future is brighter if I do less and let Good (or God) do more. I have faith my professional life will bloom and expand, so long as I use the skills God (or Good) instilled in me and I focus on the things that I do want, rather than those I don’t. I know I will be okay whether my partnership remains intact or falls apart. My future feels bright for the FIRST. TIME. EVER. How wonderful (but also how sad) is that? 

I genuinely believe that by focusing for so many years on things I didn’t want, that’s all I ever got. I have watched other people do the same, just crushing the life out of life through fear, anxiety, worry, negativity, and a complete lack of faith in themselves, other people, and opportunities. It was so hard to watch and live through that eventually I just decided there has to be another way and chose to commit to it, even though I barely knew what IT was. 

Now, I genuinely believe there is a God (or Good) and it is our duty to focus on Good (or God) if we want it to flourish. I am going to out myself as a mid-sized nerd here, but it’s almost like the Dark Side or The Force in Star Wars. One could argue that The Force is basically the same as focusing on abundance as a form of manifestation. We may not be able to move things with our minds, but the more we focus on Good (or God) and believe in it, the more amazing things we see, attract, and build in our lives. 

 Anyone who has experienced anything stressful or traumatic runs the risk of wondering What if it happens again? and spending a lifetime trying to avoid it. The fact of the matter is, we really cannot repeat the past. Even if we do experience hardship again, it will never be exactly the same as what we endured before. It will be another pain all together. That’s not particularly soothing to some, perhaps, but it is to me. The only difference between us, perhaps, is that I feel prepared. I also feel unwilling or uninterested in wasting my time trying to predict the future, because I am finally enjoying the here and now and I feel reinforced for the future, come what may. 

This is a very long way of saying: I really don’t know what’s going to happen next - and maybe, just maybe, you don’t have to either.