To Look Forward Into the Future With Optimism

“The life in front of you is far more important than the life behind you.” -Joel Osteen

There are times in life which we find ourselves to be similar to a gaming piece of a board game, in which we roll the dice to decide whether or not we need to either move forward a space, stay on the same space, or to move back a space. Some find comfort in the places they’ve been, some find joy in the places they have yet to experience. Either way, the decision to move in either direction or to remain in the same place is one dilemma most people often find themselves contemplating many times throughout their lives.  I personally have chosen to remain in the same place many times, I have also chosen to look back into my place of comfort a few times. However, there are very few times I’ve actually chosen to move forward into a new direction.

Take a second, take a breath, and ask yourself this question…at this current moment, am I where I want to be? If the answer is no, ask yourself a follow-up question: am I currently working towards the goal of being in the place I want to be? If that answer is also no, then ask yourself this final question: what is it that holds me back from being where I want to be?

Each individual person desires different things in life. Most people want a lifestyle in which they can be happy, but so many people settle for a life that they are “content” with. To be content, but not happy frequently leaves you wondering  if there is something more or different out there for you. It’s a feeling of wanting more, but settling for what is, due to fear of change, the desire for predictability in routine, or for other individual reasons some may never know about. I get it, I’ve been that person. I’ve found it hard to let go of the places that solely gave me comfort, to leave that life filled with routine and predictability, even when I knew I was not happy.

Life itself is always throwing us curve balls that can really catch us off guard. Yes, with better control of the bat, a stable stance by home plate, and with repetitive practice, it can be easier to hit them. However, there are going to be times in which you strike out. Our stance and/or form wasn’t the best, our swing was a couple seconds off, or hell, maybe it was just not our lucky day. Life happens. We like to be as skilled of a batter as we can, but sometimes the pitcher will strike us out. No baseball player has a perfect batting record. No human has a perfect record of dealing with the curveballs that life throws at them either.

The point of the metaphor above is this: we can depend on routine, the ability to think we have to control everything, our learned techniques and behaviors, and our own version of home base, but at the end of the day, life can still strike us out.  There is no sense of comfort that will protect us from the curveballs life will throw. There is no amount of control we can exert to prevent things from taking their own directed course.

People often find themselves in positions in which they are unsure of the direction to go. Do you return to that place in which you have a routine, many memories, and history in? Do you stay in the same place that you have comfort in? Or, do you move forward into a place in which you may fear, but might potentially contain some of the best things you never knew you needed?

I often think about times in the past in which I felt I was happier than I am now. I know that I wasn’t living out my full potential in those moments. I know I was curious to explore the potential of the world and life beyond the comfort zone in which I held myself in. Were times in the past easier than they are now? Absolutely. Am I happier now? Maybe not. I realize as these past few months have gone by that the piece I was missing then that I have now is a sense of optimism. It’s that “the best is yet to come” mindset that I’ve been searching for. It’s that feeling of being unsure what is next, but being excited, nervous, and all of the emotions in between.

I made the comparison at the beginning between people and pieces on a board game, and how we just roll the dice to determine the place we will go next, The roll of the dice is always unpredictable, yet, we trust it. We might want to advance 4 spaces, but maybe the dice lands on 3. We move 3 spaces and do what the place on the board tells us to do. We pay our opponent money for landing on their property, or we purchase a property of our own. The moral here is that in life, we take chances. Sometimes those chances have positive outcomes and sometimes negative. Either way, we continue to advance around the board and through life. The outcome from rolling the dice is similar to trusting the universe, one we cannot control or predict, but one we must accept.

In order to be able move forward, we must start by coming to the realization that the life we idealized or dreamt of living might not be the same as the life we were given. It’s easy to get caught up in the whole idea that life is supposed to look a certain way. We are supposed to do this and that by this age, become this or that by this age, do this or that in order to be happy. However, are the people, the ones who follow every single one of the traditional life “guidelines,” truly happy?  

We are told at a young age “you can be anything you want to be.” I often times have to take a second to think back to the time in which I was a young, optimistic, little girl with dreams bigger than the galaxy. What would her answer be if she was asked: who and/or what do you want to be? I can assure you her answer would be anything but ordinary. I know she would not have said “I want to live my life in this state of mind in which I am too fearful to explore the opportunities that life has to offer.”

Am I where I want to be? I kind of chuckle at this question if we’re being honest. I have such a contradicting answer to this question. Of course I am not exactly where I want to be. In fact, I think I never will be “exactly” where I want to be. Life changes. People change. Our minds change. Things change, and the things we once thought we wanted might not be the things we actually desired or needed after all. I might not exactly be where I want to be, in fact, I am still not fully sure where that is yet, but I do know this, I am exactly am where I need to be.

I still have to give myself a little pep talk every now and again. I have to remind myself of the things in life that will come, with patience, perseverance, and optimism, I will find the things in life I desire, and the things I don’t even know I need at this present moment. I know the best has yet to be discovered. I never knew how endless the possibilities in life actually are. There are no restrictions on what I can desire. I am not limited solely to my comfort zone and I am not dependent on my routines.

The moral of this blog is that in life, it can be easy to look back and go back into the familiarity. It’s can be a huge challenge to keep yourself on the track of looking forward. The piece of me that helps me move forward is the sense of optimism that I feel within my soul. This feeling of optimism is new, especially after I felt as if I had hit rock bottom for a while. I always trust my gut and my soul on things and what they are currently telling me is to look forward with faith and optimism, and to trust the timing and to trust the process. I had to let go of the idea that I can control my entire future. Instead, I am focused on keeping control of my present behaviors and actions in order to have a better future to come. Take each day at a time. Trust the timing of the universe, and trust the process that everything will happen as it is intended to.

Thank you for reading. Have a blessed day.