What's next?

Yesterday I found myself having multiple conversations about the future. In fact, lately I've found that subject matter to be inescapable. Perhaps it comes from being near to graduation...or at least sort of near. Many of my friends will soon be graduating, and I have begun turning my eyes toward December and my own graduation. As I do this, one pervasive question continually comes up: What's next?

I can assure you this is only the first of what will most likely be many writings on the future by me. As a senior in college, the future has started to loom menacingly on the horizon. However, this concept of looking toward the future is not reserved for college seniors. One of my conversations yesterday was with my friend Grant, a freshman at Belmont. We were both struggling with the same question. What's next? About this time of year as winter struggles in its death throws and spring begins to emerge, I believe many of us look for newness, for refreshment.

Grant later asked, "Why am I always looking ahead?" It is a painful question that I struggle with, and that many I know struggle with as well. It often takes different forms. Sometimes we pose it with an emphasis on the present: "Why can't I be content in the here and now?" Yet the sentiment is the same. It can be dangerous to focus so much on the future that we forget that we must live our lives now. Sometimes if we just step back for a moment and refocus, we remember this.

Every time I have lost someone I love to death, I am forced to reassess the way I live my life. I am trying now to find that beautiful balance between focusing on the future and the present. Each day is indeed a new day to live fully. If we can just let ourselves do so. I won't give up looking toward the future. Indeed, it is the ambiguity of the future that allows us dreamers to weave our craft. But I am also working on a renewed commitment to making each day about the now, about the moment-to-moment struggles and decisions. And I believe I'm learning how to make that balance both healthy and, in many ways, therapeutic.

We all, from time to time, find ourselves dwelling on what the future may bring. It's both a profoundly scary and immeasurably exciting place to dwell. Let's all respect that balance though and remember that God has given us the present for a reason. But, we also need to remember that there's nothing wrong with asking, "What's next?"

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