Predict Your Future

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

Predicting Your Future

“Happy Birthday!” I said with enthusiasm.  “What are you going to do today to celebrate?”

“I don’t really celebrate my birthdays.”  My friend replied in his habitual manner.  I don’t like to celebrate birthdays or holidays such as Christmas.

“Why is that?” I replied hoping to understand him more.

“I have too many bad memories!”

“What are some of your bad memories of Christmas?”

He couldn’t think of one single bad memory!

“I guess every Christmas has been stressful for me!”  He finally said with uncertainty.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Abraham Lincoln’s words shot to my rescue. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

This friend is not the only one fixed on “Past Living.”  Our conversation allowed me to see that I am also guilty of losing my life to something that can’t be repaired.  The past can’t come back to mangle any of us. Unless!  We allow ourselves to reside there as a choice.

If Past Living is your and my choice, then we will certainly re-live potentially hurtful events over and over again.  They can consume and overtake one’s life completely if allowed to do so!  Yet, they don’t need to!

Here are some ideas I’ve considered to break out of such a cycle. And, I shared them with my friend over the phone as we continued our conversation.  Perhaps they can help you and me as we incorporate them and strive to predict and create our own, desired, futures.

First.  Follow the “This is the way” principle.  Choose to live and walk with it.  When you turn to the right, and when you turn to the left.  Your internal voice will say to you, “This is the way, walk that way.”  We all have an internal compass, an inner voice, so to speak.  Listen to it.  It will take some practice, but it is there, inside of you.  Find it.

Second.  Take time to really celebrate!  I really look forward to my birthdays, because I have created a personal tradition to do so.  My father-in-law, Howard Brown, once said to me in curiosity, “You celebrate your birthday for the entire month?”  As we sat on his back patio having a small family festivity.  My answer was a resounding yes!

I was in graduate school at the time and working as a cashier at Hires Big H.  Our regular and cherished customers joined with me night after night, in the restaurant, to celebrate my birthday month, as I worked, and treasured their company!  It made my birthday month and my time at Hires memorable, like a tattoo of joy on my heart and mind.

Third. Create personal traditions.  Map and thread them into your calendar, in advance, so you have special things to look forward to.  These events can be very simple or grand.  It is up to you.  Just make sure these habits are truly fulfilling.  They will create a path to happiness if you will make it a practice.

Finally. Make it a practice to notice small things on a daily basis.  Make a mental note of magnificence and savor each moment.  See a beautiful bird?  Really see it.  Do you see a flowering tree?  Stop and breathe it in.  My daughter Kilee called me this morning with a perfect example of this.

“We’re on our way home from your neighborhood Easter Egg hunt and I just received a notice of someone at my front door.  She touched our ‘Ring’ and since I didn’t know who she was, I didn’t answer.  But, I stayed on the video and watched as she drew her phone out of a pocket and took carefully framed photos of the beautiful blooming tulips in my front yard!”

What a wonderful ability to savor and record beauty!  This unknown seeker of magnificence has mastered the skill of noticing and savoring the beauty she sees.

We can all do the same.  You and I can own a tailored-made future by incorporating one or all of these personal, future creating steps.  Then we can watch our futures unfold with bright, confident hope.

The best way to predict your future is to create it!