It Gets Worse
About a year ago, we argued that 2016 was the worst year mankind has ever experienced. Then, 2017 happened and, now, it is arguably the worst year mankind has ever experienced. Now, I am hypothesizing that 2018 will be the worst year mankind has ever experienced. We had our hopes up for 2017 and it ended, not in celebration that we survived another year, but in celebration that the torment was finally over. 2018 does not look very promising, either. Through years of experience and painstaking research, I have safely come to this conclusion; it gets worse.
For many of us, fear and anxiety when thinking about the future is common. The indefinite nature of the future, the fear of failure, the fear of traumatic experiences, the fear of making mistakes all come into play in this anxiety. For the current seniors, many of us are fearful about college and where we will end up going, if we will get into our dream school, if we will be able to pay for this dream school; one of my biggest fears is getting into my dream college and having to reject the invitation because I cannot afford to go. For the current seniors that have no intention going to college or university, they fear what they will be doing after graduation. Regardless of what our intentions are for the future, the indefinite nature of it provides many of us with a sense of uneasiness that we attempt to quickly dismiss.
Schooling and careers are the near future. But what scares me the more is the distant future, the unavoidable traumatic experiences. I know that I do not want to experience the inevitable deaths of people that I love, but I know that, ultimately, I will be forced to. When events like this come into mind, it is instinctive to dismiss the thought and think about happy dogs instead--but, this is the problem. Yes, many of us are afraid of the future and what it has to offer, but pondering over it is important. It provides many of us with this sense of excitement. It provides us with a sense of preparation. It takes a vast amount of courage to think about and come to terms with the inevitable deaths of friends and family, but if we do not, it is going to hit us harder than we ever expected. This is not only applicable to deaths, it is applicable to myriad events: failure, relationships, and careers.
This is, by no means, a proposal that everyone should constantly think about the imminent deaths of loved ones, but it is a proposal that we should think about the future more than we currently do and learn to fight the anxiety, rather not dismiss it. It is a proposal to stop comparing ourselves to those who seem like they have it all together, because, whoever appears to have their life all planned out is either lying or is really good at faking it. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it will get worse. 2018 will be miserable and 2019 will be tragic. But, we can’t keep lying to ourselves and saying that a new year means it will get better. All we really need to do is learn to accept the fact that it will get worse, and, maybe then, the world will finally stop being such a horrid place to live in.
