New Year, I Come Unprepared

The author writes about the importance of accepting the future’s uncertainties, and not focusing too much on new resolutions every year.

As people anticipate greeting the new year with new resolutions, dreams, and lists, I do no such preparations. If there is one thing I’ve learned in 2015, it is that it’s better not to plan. That being said, I would need to change a core characteristic of mine. Generally I’m an anxious planner, I need to know what I will be doing not only with my day but also with my life. Scheming the years ahead like a deity, making sure that what I plan will happen. I don’t know if that makes me neurotic, but I came to realize that it’s because I’m scared. The future scares me, because I can’t fathom the fact that there is something in my life I can’t control. I don’t know if any of you can relate to this or have ever been in this situation, all I can say is: it’s draining.

The moment of now is the present and any moment after now is a future. So, since every day, every hour, and every minute holds a future, I am anxious on a daily basis. I kept thinking of different ways to get rid of this feeling. I practiced my hobbies, I regularly went to the gym, I read, I put all my effort and time at work, and everything seemed to work, for a while. It is when I found that leeway of time that my mind wandered off a thousand light years away. So the solution was not to keep myself busy.

“Allah knows, and you do not” – (Quran 216:2)

I came across this quranic verse one day and it struck me like a lightening bolt. As obvious as this may sound, I personally tend to forget that things are out of our hands. Sometimes we need to have the patience and let the universe take its course. That was the solution, the realization that my obsessive thinking won’t make life go in the course I want it to. I realized that if I just let go and truly believe that life will happen the way it’s predestined to, I will then be more at ease. As we truly do not know what lies ahead so why waste so much time thinking of it?

“O you who believe, Endure and be more patient.” (Quran 200:3)

So I’m not putting any resolutions, expectations, and I’m not anticipating any probabilities. I need to be comfortable enough to let go of things that are beyond my control. I will meet this year with one thing, and that is patience. So world, show me what you have in store.