I don't know about anyone else, but when I try to envision my future, nothing comes to mind. Whenever I would need a pick me up, I would always try to envision my future and how future me would thank my past self for working so hard, but lately, that hasn't been the case. It's hard to think of the future when you read about bad news on the daily. In my house, CNN is on all the time and I'm always forced to look at the death count whenever I come into the living room and I just get reminded of how shitty our current situation is right now.
Around 1,000 people die every day and the clips of people being laid out in body bags play in my head every day. People are still going outside and breaking social distancing guidelines just to see a friend or a boyfriend and for what? An hour of happiness for a future that might not even exist? It's not worth it, but many people don't see it that way. While countless people are fighting on the frontlines against this virus, people are PROTESTING against staying home because they're in desperate need of a haircut. It's hard to see people fight against something that could save their lives and the lives of people around them. How can this country be so stupid and careless? How can our President instruct us to inject household cleaners into our bodies to protect us from COVID-19?
Every day, I hear bad news and I have yet to hear one piece of good news and that really takes a toll on my emotional health. How am I supposed to work towards my future if there might not be a future, to begin with? That was my thought process for the past month and it really killed a lot of my motivation. As my professors kept piling up more and more work, my drive to do that work kept declining, what was the point? Why do I have to work on a biology discussion board post when there's a worldwide pandemic going on?
Thinking like that every day got exhausting, it got to the point where I didn't want to get out of bed and face another day filled with bad news and bodybags. Until one day last week, I came across this website: www.futureme.org. It's a website in which you write a letter to your future self and they'll send it to you to whatever date you'd like, whether it be a year, three years or even ten years from now. At first, I thought it was kind of corny so I brushed it aside, but for some reason later that day, I came back to it and began to write my letter. It was hard at first to start, but as I started writing, I started to see my future again, it wasn't dark anymore; once I started, I couldn't stop. I updated my future self on everything that's going on and asked her a bunch of questions. I honestly teared up as I wrote this letter, it was tears of joy, joy because I was able to envision myself in the future, a future that no longer isn't dark, but filled with happiness. In five years I will be expecting a letter, and although I'll probably forget that I wrote this letter in a few months, I can imagine how happy 24-year-old me would be seeing that I was able to survive through a time of death and tragedy.
It seems corny and kind of dumb, but I promise once you start writing your letter, you won't be able to stop. I got back some of my motivation and I've quite honestly missed this feeling. While there are some days where I feel lost, it's better than feeling like that every day. So, do yourself and your future self a favor and write them a letter. I know you're doing nothing right now, so, write the best letter you possibly can and gain your future back.
