Anticipation Anxiety

Priyadarshini

Not knowing what the future holds for me is a very real fear I have, and sometimes it makes me act out quite irrationally. My mind constructs a map of how things can go and it’s almost always the worst it can be. This in turn drives me to do something stupid and hasty in the hopes of making sure that the future I have conceived in my mind doesn’t come true. I have never been the sort to give in to vague hogwash-like predictions, but something about trying to foretell my future sets me in a tizzy. As I sit here in a pristine room that doesn’t reflect
the true state of my mind, deprived of the little and big comforts I used to crave, I wonder how my future me is dealing with these kinds of issues. Surely she doesn’t get as insecure or overly thoughtful about foolish things and has the strength and presence of mind to keep on pushing despite the odds. Would she be able to comfort me now? She can’t, I know- she’s just a phantom to keep me company when my thoughts rebel against logic. It’s not even as though I’m worried about the big questions in life, it’s often the little things that plague me,
random shower thoughts about day-to-day life that evolve into roadblocks that stop me from thinking about anything else.

“Actively” resigning myself to the future is something I cannot accept- relinquishing the reins on a chariot as unruly as life is scary- but the alternative is like trying to light fire with wet rocks. How can I try to take control of the future while also going with the flow? Predicting the twists and turns of grad school and life beyond it is simply out of my hands, and yet I want to know. Knowledge is power, ignorance is bliss, but being scared of your own uncertain future is agony.

Henceforth I have decided to take each day as it comes- instead of worrying about the assumed looming clouds in the horizon, I will choose to bask in the sunshine here. This sunshine could be cantankerous and short-lived, but if I don’t learn to appreciate it, how will the memory of it lead me out through the dark storm? In the struggle to imagine what the future will look like, I have forgotten that I’m living in the midst of the part I used to look
forward to the most. Noting this detail puts a lot of things into perspective for me- why worry about what is to come when the present is what will shape it? Merely the thought cannot count though- I will try to “passively” act on it, knowing that I did my best but the future is simply not mine to dictate.

Of course, implementing such thoughts is easier said than done, but isn’t grad school just that? :)