I was asked recently to share my take on projecting into the future and how I cope with the massive question mark that lingers over our reality in terms of living with Multiple Sclerosis. The unknown can be overwhelming and daunting. Especially when you like to be in control of things in your life. I myself have everything scheduled out day to day. I know where I will be next Tuesday at 11:00 AM. Knowing that I don’t have a whole lot of control of the future has been a tricky little $hit to navigate around. I know that personally if i let myself start to think “too much” then ultimately i wind up screwing myself into a deranged level of fear and insecurity.
Let’s get real…
Yes, it scares the crap out of me. Will I develop any further health problems? Will I ever get a cancer diagnosis from all the risks associated with different medications? Will I reach my goals in time? Who will take care of me when I’m really old?
I fear this everyday mainly because of the fact my Husband is 19 1/2 years my senior and my parents are aging rapidly at 57 and 75 years old. I fear I will end up losing all of them within years of each other one day and will wind up dying alone. It’s a real fear and how can you not help but think of this right? But obsessing over it and allowing it to instill so much fear in you that you become frozen? Nope, we can’t go there.
The more we try to control, the less in control we actually are.
Let things ride. Let things develop. We can be proactive of course. Eat healthy, get our bodies moving, stay up to date with educating ourselves about our illness but in the end we could honestly get struck by lightening or get lost at sea during a boating day gone wrong. Little green men could invade your bedroom at night and turn you into a science project. Anything is possible. Anything can happen. So why the heck are we going to stress about it?
Can we change it? No. Can we control it? Not so much.
It’s sort of like opening Pandora’s box. If we open up the endless possibilities of things that may happen we will begin stressing out about insane bizarre things that are most likely never to happen in the first place.
I like to think I have all the answers sometimes and then BAM, something new comes out of nowhere to tell me “oh you thought you had life all figured out did you!?” That’s a wicked humbling experience, trust me! I know that regardless of what my future holds I will make it work whatever way I can, because I have made that DECISION.
Optimism isn’t something we are automatically programmed with.
Like it’s genetic or anything. I truly think optimism is a choice. Now don’t get me wrong that I don’t have days where I think the sky is falling and I go into Negative Nancy land. I have these days. I’m human and if I want to b*^%& about everything on any given day, I allow myself that right. We have to start allowing ourselves to fall apart. There’s such negative stigma associated with having a meltdown or falling apart. Like we should be ashamed or something. I had a total berserk meltdown a week ago and I’m telling you IT’S OKAY.
Have no fear, your meltdown is here!
I think the more we allow ourselves to be true to our emotions and validate them, the easier it is to have more optimism towards the unknown facets of life.
To break it down further. When we control our emotions and limit ourselves to feel certain ways (because we’ve been taught to hold it all together) we not only are bull$hitting ourselves but are remaining in someway shape or form “in control”. But if we allow ourselves to get a little out of control emotionally and go with the flow of what directions our emotions want to fling us in, that leaves us more “out of control”. You can’t be a master of optimism when you want to remain in control. It doesn’t work that way.
So let’s do the math on this…
Being true to emotions (fear, sadness, joy, frustration etc) = surrendering control so we don’t stiffle ourselves to stay in this perfectly composed and put together box
Surrendering control = allowing more things in life to just ride and develop on their own
Allowing things to develop organically = opportunity to be more optimistic
Being more optimistic = easier to life with giant question mark of an illness