Why The Future Doesn't Suck as Much as You Think

I had a minor epiphany yesterday as I lay down to go to bed. I was thinking about the past a lot (I did that again today... for future reference, not such a great idea!), and thinking about the future. Unfortunately, the only thing I didn't think about was the present.

But in all that thinking, something good grew. I realized an interesting fact about how we humans (or at least I) think about the future. Often, when we think about the future, we assume it will be just like the present, but at a later date. We don't believe that anything could possibly change, especially not ourselves. The future seems like a fixed point, instead of a ever changing mirage on the horizon.

So, take for example a common anxiety of a first year college: the loss of your current (high school) friends and the fear that you won't make any friends at college. It seems as this by itself should call for a reason to never go to college. "What, I'm going to be away from all my current friends! But, I've spent my entire life with these people! How could I live without them? They're irreplaceable!"

Yeah, that's true. They are irreplaceable. But the error in this way of thinking is that you'll never meet any more people that you connect with. That the moment you leave your hometown and go to college, from that moment on, you'll never make any new friends.

It's just so irrational a thought. But it's one I've had. I still have it. I wonder what the first few months of college will be like. What the first few days will be like, when I must take into my own hands whether I meet new people or just make a tragic rerun of Governor's School. It's scary, God yes. But only when I imagine, despite al of the evidence to the contrary, that I can't do it.

The future isn't the present. In fact, the future doesn't exist. But when the future does become the present, the present will be completely different from how it is now. It always will be. Because change is, ironically, the only constant in this universe.

In short, don't worry about making friends in college. Don't worry about losing your current friends. You won't make friends only if you make no effort to make friends. You'll lose friends only if you make no effort to keep them.

It's that simple.

Namaste