Caution: Limited Visibility Ahead! Get moving!

The future is unsure, so why look to it?  Why have goals and dreams?

        Welcome to the first day of the rest of our lives, my friends!  And hopefully, we can find ways to make the future a bit brighter than our limited visibility might have us believe. ;)

        This year, I've decided to continue the weekly, Monday posts, as we've done this past year.  It seems to have been a good practice, and I've had a lot of good feedback on it.  It also keeps me thinking on things that are positive and hopefully constructive, so that helps, too.  If I'm gonna keep a project going that is supposed to be helpful to people, one might hope it would include myself, too!  So in that spirit, I've created a list of things that could be topics I choose to use, and will ramblebabble to my heart's content, as ever.

We'll see if this turns out to have been a good idea.  Ahem.

        The topic for this week, since we are still in January and it seems to have been on everybody's mind...is the future.  Rather than focusing on the "resolutions" we try to make every year, I'm actually thinking more about looking to the future in general.  There are a lot of different opinions about looking forward, and each person has to make their own way into the opinion each holds.  After all, only we can create our own future.

        On the other hand, if we get too caught up in looking forward, we might miss what is going on, right now.  Often people start planning for a future they can't see ahead, so they focus on sacrificing life now, so that at some point in the vague outline of possibility, they'll be able to have a future that is wonderful and well-funded.  But...one might wonder if the all-or-nothing, future-planning plan is really as perfect as they probably think...if the Now suffers greatly, through the sacrifice?

        Because we can't even know what will happen 10 minutes from now, how can we be sure that the choices we make will lead to a fantastic, worry-free future?  If we look back at the plans we drew up when we began our dreams, whenever they formed and were begun, how many of us can say that those plans have played out exactly as expected, and we are entirely pleased with the outcomes?

If you are one of those people, then congrats!  

You have just come out ahead of most of the human population, as far as I know it!  

        It does happen, sometimes.  I know it.  Hence the comment!  But in reality, most of us don't end up having our situations turn out exactly how we'd hoped they'd be by the time we reached this Here and Now. And why is that?  Well, it's mostly because we've had unexpected circumstances pop up that we couldn't have foreseen.

An accident.  

An illness.  

A job loss.  

A pregnancy.  

A death.  

A relationship falls apart.  

A promise falls through.  

Any number of things that we can't predict, 

that affect things in unexpected ways.  

We reach the end point wondering 

why we couldn't achieve our perfect conclusion, 

and if we are failures, in some way.  

        Quite frankly, the sooner we realize that life just works that way, the better off we'll be.  We get asked what we want to be when we grow up, but we're never taught that the plan needs to be flexible and have alternate choices hanging out in the wings.  We need to learn to adapt to new circumstances, and modify our goals according to the new factors.  We also need to understand that sometimes our end goals are going to need to be changed, and if we can find a way to change them in a way that still allows us to have a sense of satisfaction from the endeavor of living...then that's the best kind of way to live, right?  If we can be satisfied and happy with the ending, no matter what the ending turns out to be, won't that lead to a happy, satisfying conclusion, as well as a more positive experience in the Now?

        Does that mean that dreams and goals are not worth creating? Of course not! Dreams and goals are what help us propel ourselves into a direction, providing opportunities for growth, contribution, satisfaction and purpose! Without them, we might just curl up and wait to turn to dust, in some respects...after all, what is this thing we call living, if we never so much as learn to breathe, eat, walk, talk, smile, or in any other way interact with our environment? There are many who do not get that opportunity, so what more are we if we are simply too apathetic or lazy to progress in any way?

        Humans are wired for growth and achievement. It is in our nature to face challenges, and learn to overcome them in some way. We are at our best when we are using our creative talents and perseverance to make something out of what wasn't there, before! This is how progress has been made, in science and other areas. It is the way our species has risen from it's beginnings and become all it has become! What would this world have become if no one had ever decided to try just hunting, gathering, planting, and harvesting? Such things we take for granted, and yet were developed over years, decades, centuries...millennia. Those things were kind of important, don't you think?

        Yes; goals and dreams are important, and just as vital are the drive and perseverance that make success happen, even among failures. Failures, after all, are simply the scientific method of elimination of processes which don't work. And sometimes, those apparent failures lead to new discoveries that might turn out to be more important to The Grand Scheme of Things than the original hypothesis! So giving up on dreams and goals serves nothing, unless the realization comes that something else arises that is evidently more crucial to progress, and therefore focused energy is directed to more valuable things.

        So yeah, find a dream, plan out small goals that will get you there, and include in those goals, finding a way to stay motivated. Because if you haven't figured it out yet, humans may be wired to achieve...but we're also notorious for getting distracted, discouraged or disoriented from our ambitions, sometimes flavored with a bit of apathy! So find what works for you, and get to it!

        And don't forget to celebrate the current moment, and all that has brought you to this point. You are a wonder of existence, and the fact you've come this far could be called a miracle! Now is what we have, and Now is the only thing we get, so make it count! I believe in us! So there you have it; my little spiel about what you probably already know. Feel free to comment about how you make it work for you, or brag, or ask questions, either here, below, or on the PB Facebook Community Page.  It would be great to hear from you!

        Better days ahead, my friends!