Focus on certainties, not questions

I hate waiting. Long or short time, important or unimportant, waiting for spring or for quarantine to end, it’s all terrible. Patience is not easy. But there are so many things we are forced to wait for, so many questions as yet unanswered, especially today. What will I do over the summer? What will I do after graduation? COVID-19? Are aliens real? (I admit, that last one may not be pressing on everyone’s mind, but it’s still a question.) We will never have all the answers. Yes, some questions will be answered sooner than others (I’ll find out what I’m doing over summer in about one and a half months), but those questions will always be replaced by other, less answerable questions.

So, what is the solution? How do we deal with the uncertainty of not knowing when life will go back to normal or if the next Marvel movie will be good? The solution is in our attitude, the one variable we can control. Instead of letting the uncertainty consume us and become the focus of our worries and cares, we can focus instead on the things that we know. Don’t let unanswerable questions suck all your thoughts black hole style. After all, what good did worrying ever do? Pay attention to the here and now, not the endless possibilities of the future. Focus on those things that are certain to ground you and plug on.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t make plans, but at some point, enough is enough. You can’t plan for every eventuality, but you can practice being adaptable in the present moment and make the most of every opportunity.

I may not know what exactly I will do this summer, or even what summer will look like worldwide, but I know that I will do something, and if I have the right attitude I can be useful, even if I am stuck at home in isolation. Instead of sending days worried about the specifics of what I will do, I can but that energy into more useful areas. Yes, I don’t know when quarantine will end or how close I personally am to catching COVID-19, but I do know that the global uncertainty and change has forged a bond between people, a common experience unlike any my generation has seen before. The world is changing, and I am a part of it.