Can you live with the unknown?

That’s part of being a human. We can try to take steps to produce the best possible outcome, but in the end anything beyond this moment is a complete mystery. Most of us find that really difficult to live with. We want to know what our future holds. We want to ensure a future of safety, financial security, and happiness. We do so many things to try and create a better or a positive outcome for what is to come.

Now, if you are a mother – you worry about their future too. It’s not just your own future that preopccupies your thoughts. We wonder how our children are going to do in school. We wonder if they will graduate and want to go to college. We want them to go to college. So, we do our best to instil a love of learning in them and encourage them to get good grades so that they will be able to go to a good school. Still, we cannot be sure of any of it. When they are young, we cannot be positive that they will like school. We cannot be positive that even if they do fantastic in school they will want to go to college. Even if they go to college we cannot be sure they will come out of college to get a good job. Nothing is ever for sure until the moment it actually happens. We cannot be sure our children find a partner who is right for them and who will make them happy for the rest of their lives. There is so much about which we cannot be sure. And yet, we put so much time and energy trying to do all the things necessary to make sure they are happy in the future and that they do well in life. And still, sometimes all our efforts do not produce the desired results. Their life is a complicated mix of influences and there is nothing we can do to prevent them from fulfilling their own destinies. Sometimes it will work out exactly as we had planned and sometimes it won’t. As children, they are like little sponges soaking up what everyone is telling them from us to the TV to the kid next door. All we can do is our best. But can we live with the unknown? Can we live with not knowing how their future will turn out? Can we live with not knowing how our future will turn out? Can we love them with all our hearts right now and know that that is enough no matter what happens 10 years down the line? Can we live with the unknown? A lot of us cannot. We are so busy trying to control the future that we forget to enjoy the present.

No one can predict their future.