Your Life, Your Future

In the movie, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Doris Day sang the wellknown song Que Sera Sera. Translated from the French this means, what will be, will be; and it highlights the fact that it is very difficult to look into the future. It is hard to predict the future and the further into the future we peer the more challenging this becomes. Weather forecasters face a similar problem and although they are reasonably accurate for a few days ahead after that their accuracy becomes close to guesswork. But there is a difference; we might not be able to change the weather but we can change our behaviour according to the prevailing conditions. Changeable winds can influence a sailboat; however, if we have a clear understanding of the direction of our dreams we can adjust the sails and the rudder and still arrive at our destination.

Plan Your Life

We spend a great deal of time looking forward to vacations and when they arrive we want to relax and enjoy our time as much as possible. To do this we carefully find out about our destination, accommodation, food etc. and then arrange things so that they come as close to perfection as possible thereby giving us wonderful memories which can keep us going through the winter months.

Our vacation time is valuable and that is why we want to get the most from it. And, you would think, this attitude would also apply to achieving the most from our lives, but many people spend more time planning their vacations than on planning their lives. There are many reasons why this is so. Perhaps we are too familiar with our everyday lives. Perhaps we think that there is plenty of time to cram everything in. Perhaps we think we can do that hard thinking another day when we have more time. Perhaps we are too satisfied with how things are than to plan for the future. There are so many excuses but few of them stand up to scrutiny for very long.

We cannot expect anyone else to plan our lives for us. It is our responsibility for making space in our lives to consider what we would really like and then to prioritise these dreams and then to set out a route map to achieving them. We might also encourage children to think about what they want to do and give them plenty of encouragement. Working away at dreary homework is not motivating for most children but if they can see a bright future for themselves they will stick to the task and be successful.

If we value ourselves and what we can contribute to those around us we should plan what we want to achieve. The old saying: ‘People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan’ is very accurate. The more thought which we invest in planning where we want to go in our lives the greater the chance we will achieve what we want for ourselves and our families.

“Le futur n’est pas ce qui vient vers nous, mais ce vers quoi nous allons.”

“The future is not what is coming at us, but what we are headed for.”

Jean-Marie Guyau (1854 – 1888) French philosopher and poet