The Uncertainty of The Future - Riley Girard
Ever since I was in the 7th grade (roughly 13 or 14 years old) I always wondered what the future would hold for me. Of course, no one can actually see the future, so it always kept me wondering about what was to come. Would I end up moving schools all of a sudden because of a job change in my household? What if I become gravely ill and tomorrow I end up fighting for my life? What if everything would end up running smoothly and I was overthinking everything this whole time? That was the younger, less mature me, however. At that time, I was still figuring out certain aspects of life with my parents and figuring out why certain things happen. However, now that I am much older, I look back and realize how little those problems were compared to the ones I am currently dealing with.
I am now a junior in high school, which obviously means that my thoughts have changed. Instead of wondering what the future would look like, I now wonder how my current course of action will alter my future. The seniors at my school, they’re going to start living their adult lives once they graduate. Whether they apply for a job, go to college or university, or enroll in the military, they have to begin living like an adult with whatever experiences they had in high school. Some, however, are far more experienced than others in high school because of the paths they chose to take. Or the paths they chose not to take.
All of this makes me wonder whether I am on the right path or not to become my best self after high school. I want to be accepted into college in order to work for a degree of my choosing. I want to be able to make my parents happy and proud. I want to be able to live a comfortable life once (or if) I start my career. I ask this question to myself constantly every day because of the constant fear of not accomplishing what I want. These questions I have can be answered, however, through the advice of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”.
Sagan discusses in the text how the world is a sacred place and is very sensitive to the environmental damage humans have caused it. He hopes that humans see the effects of their doings and that it causes them to change their ways. When Carl Sagan says, “The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life”, it suggests that me personally, and us as a whole, should be cautious of what we do today because it can change the way we and future generations live.
The arguments that Sagan makes remind me of a piece of advice my grandfather once gave me before he passed. Whenever we talked about life, he would always say “It’s ok to learn from your mistakes. However, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others.” This quote has stuck with me ever since his passing and I ponder the deeper meaning of it. Sagan’s arguments in “Pale Blue Dot” relate to this quote because both Sagan and my grandfather talk about the mistakes of humans and how it is influencing the world around them. Then I refer back to my question. “Am I becoming my best self?” Even if I think that the small things won't influence the outcome of my life, I have learned that every aspect of my life will influence my future. I need to start preparing myself for what is to come, whether known or unknown and take responsibility for everything I have done or have not done in order to prepare for what lies ahead.
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ReplyDeleteLove how down to earth this blog is. I think we have all thought about the future atleast once in our lives. Really how you shifted perspectives as well, and became more thoughtful about what the future holds.
ReplyDeleteI like Rishi's way of describing the tone of this blog--"down to earth." Your writing voice is natural and inviting, almost like you are simply talking to us in a conversation. This is hard to achieve in writing, and it has a great affect on us as audience members. We trust you because you seem like someone who is thoughtful and a good listener.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I notice here is that your 7th grade worries seemed VERY important in 7th grade, but now your 11th grade worries seem VERY important. I wonder if in 3-4 years your worries NOW will feel less important, or less severe.
Your movement from the past to the present, into Sagan's text is really great, and I LOVE how you connect this then to your grandfather, which is almost like a past that is also a future (since your Grandfather was much further along in his life when he gave you this bit of advice).
your question about "becoming your best self" is great, but perhaps where you are placing the stress on "best self", I might recommend placing the emphasis on "becoming," since, REALLY, we are NEVER a stable self, but we are always in a process of becoming. The idea of "best" seems to imply an END to the change that happens in us as we live our lives, like you might imagine your personality will eventually be what it is and that is that. On the contrary, one of the great wonders of the universe is that EVERYTHING you do, including reading these words, CHANGES you quite literally in some small way. And even the smallest change in a network as complex and interwoven as personality means that EVERYTHING shifts just a bit, so that we are never the same as we were, and by the time we say "I am..." we aren't any more.