My last article was about the past and how living too much in it may deter us from the present moment in which we are in. This makes me think. Is it possible that we may live too much in the future? I can attest to being one who not necessarily look forward to goodbyes. Does anything “good” actually come from them? At the moment I don’t think so. When you don’t get the chance to say goodbye to someone it can feel weird, and you are looking forward to the next time you will see them again. Knowing that a goodbye is about to happen is another thing, but I’m not so sure that makes them any better, or any more bearable to go through.

Have Your Voice Heard: Become an Odyssey Creator

Saying goodbye almost always comes with a guaranteed rush of memories that you’ve had with this person, whether good or bad. With the rush of memories comes emotions that we may not want. This is why that sometimes living too much in the future is not necessarily a good thing. We spend our time with the people leaving thinking about goodbye, and the emotions that will ultimately overcome us. We spend time trying to brace ourselves for farewells that we have no time to appreciate the present moments that we are lucky enough to have with them.

Our future is like a destination that we put into our GPS. Put in the address, follow the directions, get there on time. We are so fixated on following the directions and getting to our objective, that we don’t take the time to look around us. Traveling to a new place can be exciting, but we need to remember to enjoy our time with our “home.” I am using the term home loosely here, whether a person or an actual place.

We become so accustomed to seeing people all the time, that when we know there will eventually be a goodbye that needs to be said, we try to avoid the inevitable, pretend that it doesn’t really need to happen. I admit that every time I need to say goodbye, whether it be for only a short period of time or a while I try to avoid it. I don’t necessarily avoid the actual goodbye because I don’t think that I couldn’t say goodbye to people, but I try to push the memories and emotions that come flooding back to the back of my mind. If I’m being honest, my emotions usually overcome me more times than not. Friends graduate, family moves away, and people travel, these are all times for goodbyes. I find myself spending my last moments with someone not truly enjoying their presence, but thinking about what I will do without them by my side, or at a close distance. But don’t worry these people will come back to visit – whether we force them to or not. As we get older we are each given new opportunities, and we would be fools not to take them. Sometimes these may mean moving away, but hey that’s just another excuse to travel. We can’t make people stay in one place, that’s not what our generation is meant to do. We are meant to leave what is so familiar to us, and travel to the unknown, go on adventures.

The one thing that is constant in our lives is change. Yes, this is quite the contradiction but it is something that I have found to be true. We are only human; we can’t control everything in our lives. We can barely control things that happen to us, so how are we to believe that we can control what happens in other people’s lives? We truly can’t, but the thing that we can do is be there for them when they are going through something. We can be their support, and shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen. We can be a phone call or car ride away showing our support no matter the circumstance, because we would like to believe that they would do the same for us.

So when the time is nearing for you to say your next goodbye, please live in the moment. Enjoy the time that you have with the people in your lives while they are with you. Look forward to the next time that you’ll see them rather than thinking of what you’ll do without them until that point. Promise each other that you will stay in touch till the next time you will see each other. Lastly, don’t say “goodbye”, but “see you later.”