Tuesday, March 30, 2021

In the Future

In Things Will Be Better When… from Ideas and Thoughts, Dean Shareski shares,

“...life is full of struggles and wishing them away is natural but also shouldn’t be completely seen as something to get through.”

As a child, I remember wishing I was older. I couldn’t wait until I was thirteen because then I was a teenager. I couldn’t wait until I was eighteen, because then I was a grown-up. I couldn’t wait until I was twenty-one because then others saw me as an adult. After twenty-one, I didn’t seriously wish to be older than I was.

As an adult, I couldn’t wait until I got married. I couldn’t wait until we bought our new house. I couldn’t wait until I retired. I couldn’t wait until we went on our next trip. I couldn’t wait until I finished my current project.

I need to remember to enjoy the here and now. I need to appreciate my life as it is and observe the good things around me. By always keeping my head in the future, I sometimes miss the things that are happening in the present. I like to schedule and make lists and sometimes I get annoyed with my husband when he is enjoying what’s going on while I’m doing all the prep work. It isn’t fair! Then I tell myself that he is doing what I should be doing and living in the moment.

Since Covid has kept us at home more, I’ve been able to do many things on our house that we’ve been postponing. I’ve started a new crafting project that I’ve been interested in but never had the time since we were traveling so much. I’ve been able to do a lot of gardening that I’ve missed because we are not at home a lot.

Yes, in the future things may look different. In fact, the future always looks different because changes happen every day. Nothing stays the same. It might not be another pandemic but something else out of my control.

How I perceive the future will be determined by the attitude I have. I can accept the challenge of the changes and appreciate the present or I can resist the changes and be miserable every day. If the changes are something out of my control, then I need to look at the things I can control and deal with them.

I need to help my students learn to appreciate their life right now. They need to stop thinking about how life will be better when we get back to “normal.” What is normal? Some students want to avoid what is going on in their lives right now in hopes that they will deal with things in the future when things are better. Things will never get back to the way things were because we are different people than we were then. Changes have happened that have impacted our lives and we can’t undo some of these changes. These influences have shifted the way we see and do things. I need to help my student accept the way things are right now and deal with what is going on right now.

How do you help students who want to only think about “in the future”? Please share.
 
Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

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