Do you ever find yourself wishing for the future, skimming between different places to study abroad, scrolling on Pinterest and seeing wedding dresses that you would die for, finding your mind drift to the future?
Too often we find ourselves anxiously waiting for something in our lives to come, whether it’s for school to end and summer to arrive, or if it’s simply waiting to go on an exciting vacation that’s been planned for a while. Don’t get me wrong, being excited for something is awesome, but we sometimes spend too much of our time waiting for what is to come instead of appreciating what we already have.
Trust me I am definitely a culprit of this and find myself wishing for something new and exciting in my life a little too often. My first semester I was waiting for my classes to be over and to get new ones, for winter break to come and the road trip that followed, and most frequently for the midterms that were always lurking around the corner. My second semester I found myself waiting for more of a distant future. I had no idea what I wanted to study and I just wanted to be done with college -- to move on and be in my 20’s living in Soho, New York, because by then, I probably would have my life somewhat figured out. Not knowing what you want to do can be stressful and for me it always led to dreaming of the future because that was comforting. The idea of having your life planned out seemed so enticing to me that I couldn’t stop thinking about what I would do after college.
Throughout my freshman year of college, I noticed myself doing this more than usual, not because I didn’t enjoy my first year because I certainly did, but because at this age we have so much to look forward to. College is all about preparing for the rest of your life and figuring out what you want to do when you’re older -- it’s almost impossible to not get sucked into the state of waiting. It could feel like ages that you’re waiting for something and then all of a sudden it’s here. What you’ve been waiting for arrives quicker than expected and you’re left with “Now what?” Well, now you wish for something else and you wait for that new and exciting thing and it becomes a never ending cycle. The cycle we call life is hard to escape from, but what we have to realize is that all of these changes and events that we are so eager for will come with time. If we spend our life waiting for the future, we waste our present time and don’t enjoy the now. We overlook the good that our life already is filled with and fail to appreciate our youth. You don’t want to look back and regret not living your life to the fullest at that moment, right? So next time you find yourself waiting for the next milestone of your life, take a step back and focus on the now -- you will find that there is a lot more to life than just waiting.
