What the future beholds

When Reinout and I were driving away from Copenhagen, he asked me what I wanted from life. I didn’t say anything so he asked again, probing me for an answer. I went blank, I was seriously tired, and I just couldn’t focus on the question. Or perhaps that was just my excuse. Perhaps I had no fucking clue what I wanted in life. Which is pretty sad if not pathetic. With all the opportunities that have been practically laid down at my feet, and I couldn’t give a simple answer to what I was expecting of life.

Rewinding back 15 years, I always had the answer to those questions. If people asked me where my future laid, I was going to finish school, go to university and study to become a journalist or a doctor. The kind of traditional occupations that required long and hard studies – and I was good at that. This was a gift mother nature had bestowed me with. But life turned out very differently and as the years went by my sight on the future became muddled. Still I worked towards objectives, but they were not particularly grand. It was delivering the next project on time and budget, decorate a new house, loose weight or achieve those targets at work. What did I expect of life? Well, not a lot, or perhaps I didn’t really  give it much thought.

Yesterday Reinout wrote me an email, about how his future came to him whilst listening to his techno music, volume on full power with his headphones on. He often does in the evening, when it’s late and the rest of the house is asleep. It was startling similar to how I used to imagine my own future. It would often come to me when I was out running, with blasting music I could run and run, my sight focused on the horizon but beyond this played out scenarios of wealth, luck, fortune and success. It gave me power. Made me feel invincible and for the moment I was an engine on jet fuel, running without  ending.

Coming back to how I now see my life, I still can’t say. Blaming it on being tired is an easy escape. Perhaps in all honesty I am being ungrateful and unappreciative, not able to understand the gift that has been handed to me. It sadly seems more closer to the truth. This opens up for a whole new set of questions. When is the time when I take my future and run with it? When is the time when I stop escaping and start doing something about the issues I often create myself? When will I drop my attitude, expecting other people to bail me out when I have all the power in my own hands?

I realise I have written about this for the last four months now, but in fact very little has changed. It’s time for transformation, and even that I am not sure how to go about anymore. And yet something tells me that with tiny steps I am moving forward…