[2021-04-29] The future
A quote came up on my Instagram feed the other day that gave me pause. It was from one of those purveyors of positive sayings that seem to sprout in my feed. Though I couldn't find the exact statement today because I was no longer following the account that published it, the quote essentially said not to worry about the future because we have no control over it.
While we may not have control over the future, surely we have influence over it, I thought. If my car is running on empty, my choice to stop for gas or not will have an impact on my future. If I am running on empty, my choice to slow down or press on will similarly have consequences.
I thought about the Instagram quote today when a friend sent me this passage by political theorist John Schaar:
The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created―created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.
This makes infinitely more sense to me. I love the notion that we create our future. As Schaar suggests, first we dream our future, then we commit to it, then we take action to bring it into reality. The final outcome may not look exactly the way we imagined it. Sometimes, it falls short of our expectations; other times, it exceeds them. For instance, I never envisioned myself as an assistant deputy minister when I began my career in government at the age of 22. As with many things in life, I took things day by day, peering a few weeks or months or years into the future, but definitely not decades. As American statesman Dean Acheson said, "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."
As I've mentored various young people over the years, I've shared that sometimes opportunity came to me (I accepted some and declined others) while other times, I created opportunities for myself by, for example, applying for new positions. In the former cases, I felt like the organization was pulling me into a new role, occasionally at higher levels. In the latter cases, I felt like I was pushing myself forward, searching for my next assignment or my next level. In both cases, my choices and my activities influenced the direction of my career.
Even now, as I deal with a disease over which I have very little control, I focus on the things over which I have influence. An example is the medication I'm taking. I might have shied away from taking the drug because of the side effects—both real and potential—but I chose to take it, on the belief that the benefits would outweigh the risks and that close monitoring would identify if the risks started to outstrip the benefits.
While the path I'm on as I face ovarian cancer is not one of my choosing, the approach I am taking to walking that path—sharing my story to shed light on the disease and its symptoms for those who come after me, remaining positive and optimistic unless I have evidence to the contrary, and processing my emotions through daily writing—is one that is entirely of my choosing. This unexpected development in my life has changed me and, no doubt, my destination. My hope is that it will be for the better.
