Futile (The Course of Life Series)

However careful we are in our walk in life, however faithful we are in trudging our chosen roads, one way or another, ourselves will betray us, and will do something that will dramatically change the course of our lives. To control our lives is futile, for “ourselves” and life itself, are unpredictable.

We meticulously plan our lives, like an artist preparing to start creating his masterpiece, we make sure everything that we need is ready, and are within our reach. Our canvass, or the clay that we need is of utmost quality, and so are the other materials that we need in our creation- the rotating machine where we mold our clay must be working properly; the paints and the paint brushes are clean, flexible, and the best of its kind. So are we in our lives; how many of us have started planning what to take in college at very early age? How many of us, upon stepping into their fourth year in high school have started pondering on what course are they going to take in college? In which school are they going to attend college to? I am pretty sure, almost every one of us.

We carefully think over what course, in which field, are we going to take. We consider not only our interests, but also our chances in the job market after we graduated. And not only that, we also put into consideration the lucrative-ness of our chosen field after we start working. After pondering on what field we’re going to jump ourselves into, we consider the school. For most, their first consideration is universities. Those universities with established names and tested by time. Those universities wherein, upon mere mention of their name, you get accepted right then and there. (Quite a consideration for young people who most don’t have an idea, neither a glimpse on what life truly is.) And so the careful planning, the careful preparation, mislead with the idea that if we do this, we are ensuring our success in the future (I am not trying to discredit this process, which I, myself believe is the first step in being successful in the near future, I am just trying to establish the basis of my conclusion and opinion on the futility of controlling our life, much more, our future.)

And so after graduation, come the start of putting into action the careful planning and preparation that we did, for only time knows how long, for the working for our successful, achieving future. And so it is also the time that reality will start sinking in, to the very depths of our hypothalamus. But to most, despite of the reality, they would still faithfully, carefully, follow their planned course in life.

As I have mentioned at the first part of this writing, however careful we are, however faithful we are in trudging our chosen course of life, at one point of time, there will definitely come what we call, a turning point. And after that, another turning point, and another turning point, and so on. (Yes, life is full of turning points, that’s a reality most fail to recognize.)

Life is unpredictable. However religious we are in our walk in our chosen courses of life, we always, always, get side-tracked. Not always a negative implication, but we do. What we have planned to be us, ten years ago, doesn’t always come true. If it does, usually we are not happy, neither contented.

Our life is not our work of art, we can control the outcome of the plays that we write, the poetry, the novels and short stories; what we conceived in our minds to be our creations, we mold by our hands, and we get to create them exactly as we have pictured in our minds, but not our lives.

We simply don’t have the power to shape our lives perfectly according to how we want it to be. We are too complicated, short-sighted, easily swayed, emotional and readily affected by everything around us. And the things that are around us, everything of it, we don’t have control over. Unlike the paint brushes, the colors, the clay, and the rotating machine, we cannot control the very factors that are shaping our lives. We can’t control the actions of our love ones, our families, our friends, and our not-friends, in fact, even ourselves. As much as we cannot control what and who is around us, so us, many times, we just do things unconsciously (and without ulterior motives).

At one point, one way or another, we may utter a word, we may make a decision, or make a facial expression or gesture; we may make a wrong turn while walking, step on the break by mistake, board the wrong bus; everything we do, every action we make, everything, may cause a change of course in our lives. We just simply don’t have a control over these matters. The actions may be predictable, but not the result of these actions. We simply can’t do that. And because we simply can’t do that, then we simply can’t control our life.

To control our life is futile. In the first place, we are not meant to control our lives.
~*~

If we cannot control our life, and we are not meant to control it, then, we are facing a bleak future. Right?

No.

It is to attempt to control one’s life, to control your life - that will definitely make you face a bleak future.

Why?

Till the next writing……