What can I expect from the future? |

Does the future worry you? How many times have you lost sleep over thinking about what’s going to happen to you? The more responsibilities you have, the more the future troubles you. There may be a feeling of walking on a string in a dark place. In some moments you feel that you are fully capable of facing what appears. In others, you fear failure in the face of challenges that may appear.

We tend to deal with the future using control. “If everything is under my control, what can scare me in the future?” But the future always brings some surprises… There are no guarantees, there are no certainties! We look to the future generally with eyes accustomed to patterns of behavior that we bring from the past. It’s as if we were wearing colored glasses, each one with the color they created throughout their lives.

We look to the future generally with eyes accustomed to patterns of behavior that we bring from the past. It’s as if we were wearing colored glasses, each one with the color they created throughout their lives.

Among these patterns, you can put yourself as a victim and think “soon someone will spoil my future anyway”. Or, as an executioner and think “I’m going to end up hurting someone again”. These standards are examples of how we can delegate to another person the conditions to build our future. This construction is made with elements that we have today and with what appears new every day – and which we often insist on ignoring.

What standards are really yours?

Behavior patterns begin to be built in childhood, according to the norms and habits we learn at home and at school, and by imitating our parents’ behavior. This molds us in a profound way and it is very difficult to change the influence they exert on our behavior. But very difficult does not mean impossible. To become free individuals we need to identify our patterns of behavior and ask about each one of them:

Is this mine or does it belong to my father, my mother, the city where I was born and raised? Does it still serve me today? Is this what I want to develop and move forward in my life or can I work to change this pattern?

It often takes the help of a psychotherapist, but a critical and attentive look at you can already bring a lot of discoveries.

It seems illogical to look closely to the past to deal with the future in a safer way. However, it is this past that changes the color of the lenses of the glasses we use to glimpse the future. If the lenses are not transparent, we will not see clearly. Pink lenses will give you a very different view than brown lenses. And none of the two comes close to reality.

After learning from the past, one must learn to be in the present, to be in the moment. The moment is a period of time that may seem minimal, but it is eternal, because we are always in it, although our mind can be back there or ahead. It is in the present moment that we will find the elements with which we will build our future. We need to be attentive to identify these elements that come to us as a present, such as everyday surprises. These gifts don’t always look good at first, but as events unfold, they can prove to be a determining factor for a life change. A very common example of this is an unexpected layoff. How many people are happy to be fired? I believe very few, if any. However, after a year of dismissal, many people may be treading a professional path more in line with their own expectations and skills and, consequently, with greater job satisfaction. As you can see, what you need most to welcome the future is attention, being aware of how and where you were created and who you are now, and knowing how to welcome what every moment holds for us with surprises, to be able to flourish who you want to be.