It's 4am, and I Can't Sleep...

...so I'll do what I always like to do: write. Maybe I want to be a writer, like in a newspaper or something? I dunno, we'll see. I know most people wouldn't care about the things I think about, but for the special few that do, as always, this one is for you.

My whole life, I've been taught to plan ahead, to think of how my actions today will affect where I end up tomorrow.

Through high school, I was told to do well so that I could go to a good college. Now that I'm at a good college, I've got to do well here, so that I can get a good job once I graduate. Always planning, always trying to map out what kind of future the present will allow me to achieve. Everything was just plans, plans, plans, for the sake of predictability. Sometimes, it's a good thing. Other times, it's definitely not the best thing to do.

I notice now that I have a very strong tendency to think ahead way too much. It's almost to the point that I spend so much time in some idealized vision of the future that I forget I still have to do stuff in the present if I want to get anywhere close to achieving it. When my friends get into certain situations, even if it's just as simple as trying to get someone's new phone number to contact them about something important, I'm very quick to run through every possible scenario I can think of, every little pathway, every available course of action. If you do this, then this, this, this, and this can happen. Once that happens, it can lead to this, or this, but at the end of the day it'll lead to... whatever. That's just how it kind of plays out for me.

And really, it's one of my most favorite things to do. In the most general sense, I love to pick things apart. I like to see how the big picture is affected by all the smaller entities that make it up. I like to analyze--or in this case, over-analyze--situations and things.

When I over-analyze, I grant myself the illusion of knowledge of the future; I essentially trick myself into thinking that I know what's going to happen. The biggest problem with doing this is that when things don't go as well as you expect them to go, or some random variable pops up and completely alters, if not ruins, every element of your analysis, it hits you harder than usual. A lot harder.

One thing I've known for some time now is that the more you expect from a situation, the more likely you are to be disappointed in the end. Kind of like how it's a longer fall from the top of the ladder, and even though you don't expect to fall off, you do. It just happens sometimes.

How will I overcome this?

Well, the best piece of advice I've gotten is this: stop trying to live in the future, because you're not there yet. All we've really got is the present. This is where you get to leave your mark. So stop thinking so much about what you would rather be doing; just focus on what you're doing right now, and eventually, you'll find time, and everything will fall into place.

My own little take on it: Life flows like water. Water has no structure. There are no lines to follow, nothing to predict. We are but leaves floating on a river. No matter how much control we think you may have, the water is what runs the show. Don't try to control the water, because you can't; it's force is more overwhelming than anything you could possibly imagine. There is an infinite number of variables which we can hardly understand to begin with. Things will happen for reasons that we will barely ever be able to understand. Instead, just go along with it. Let it take you exactly where you belong.

As much as you would like to put structure on it, you shouldn't, because even though you would like to think you know exactly how it works, there's going to be some small thing that just pops up and blows you away. Life can be described with one word, my most favorite word: dynamic. It's always changing, and rarely can you truly know what to expect. As much as we love that little piece of security that "predictability" offers us, when you think about it, it's really just an illusion. Things that we don't expect to happen will happen. At the end of the day, all you can really do is just go with it. In the present, all we can do is make our decisions, so that we can move on to the next set of decisions. Life will put you in a place, and you can either do nothing, or or do something. Either way, the water will take you somewhere. I realize now that my water metaphor is starting to fall apart. Oh well.

Let the chips fall where they may. If life give you lemons, make lemonade.

I don't know about you guys, but I want to make some good-ass lemonade.

I have no idea what I'm talking about.

-nesqu!k