Animals don’t suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. You see, animals don’t forecast the future, they truly live in the moment. So, they experience fear when a predator prowls but once they outrun her and don’t become dinner, they go back to grazing, grinning, and even sleep well that night after flirting with their demise. We humans, on the other hand, may have recurring nightmares after a similar event. Our brain will naturally continue to forecast another near death moment coming and so we worry, mostly about the future. We forecast the future. The positive outcome of this ability is evident when we have faith in our future. When we believe the future can be better than the present moment, we dream and do. We dream big about what we can do to build a better way, a better home, car, or just about anything. Our creativity and innovative desires come from our ability to have faith in the future.
Faith in your future matters, friend. It matters a great deal. The hopeless do not dream and do. Why bother, they tell themselves, the future is gonna be like one long stint in the dentists chair. So, they sit there in anticipation of more pain, more drilling, and more of the same they predict for their pain filled future. The truth is that as bad as the dentist chair seems in the moment, the pain is short lived and the benefits long lasting. Once the crowns are complete, our smiles return, the days of wooden teeth and dentures are a distant memory, and we can turn our attention to doing whatever it is that we love to do knowing that our mouth is ready to go the distance. Instead of hopeless we can be hopeful, we can dream and do, dream and do, and dream and do some mo.
So, friend, you can forecast your future. The more you forecast with faith the more you grin and bear those dentist chair moments and anticipate the smiles of a better you when the adversity is over. You are a forecaster whether you know it or not. Forecast with faith. I mean come on man, what’s it gonna hurt to have more faith than fear? What is the alternative – just sit there and accept that life is going to drill you? Viktor Frankl survived three years in Nazi concentration camps and saw, firsthand, what happens when faith dissipates. “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay…He simply gave up.”
Do not give up, friend. Have faith in your future. Recognize that adversity is coming and know it’s not going to defeat you, but instead define you. I have faith in my future. I have faith in God. I have faith in a few. How ‘bout you? Good.
Live hard. Love harder (Thanks, Teeks)…
BUILT TO LEAD 