Anxiety about the Uncertainty of a Desirable Future

Picture of Celine Lai

Celine Lai

2nd Year Economics, University of Exeter.
Celine is a talented CEKU writer with a unique way of conveying emotions through her words.

Social media has undoubtedly infiltrated our lives, with a multitude of content being made available online, many of which consist of creators romanticising different aspects of their lives, making the people who view their content dream of living such a life. We see snippets of our friends’ or acquaintances’ lives online and oftentimes unconsciously compare ours to theirs. We tend to get so caught up in what is shown in the media that we forget what we see is just a tiny portion of someone’s life, usually the nicer parts of it. 

 

I, myself, am a victim of doing this. Seeing people live seemingly picture-perfect lives often makes me wonder why my life seems less-than-adequate compared to theirs. It makes me anxious knowing that I am not living the ‘perfect’ life that I had envisioned through my Pinterest boards, or that I am not thriving in life right now. Nevertheless, the definition of ‘thriving in life’ is extremely subjective; for example, one person’s definition of thriving may be another person’s definition of mundane. For the past few weeks, I have been anxious about applying for internships and the outcome of it, and what I am going to pursue after university. Seeing people doing internships over the past summer made me wonder if I was not doing enough for my future. What if nobody hires me? What if I do not do well in my exams? What if my future does not end up like what I envisioned it to be?

 

 

Sourced from: https://www.cedars-sinai.org/blog/hidden-symptoms-of-stress.html 

 

What made me feel the most uneasy was the realisation that whatever I do from now on, inevitably determines my future. How so, you ask? Well, whether I choose to spend more time studying will affect my overall grades, which will affect my job prospects. Whether I prepare and do well in an interview or a psychometric test, will affect my job prospects, thus my future. The list goes on and on. As you may have guessed, I did end up having a breakdown over this – the uncertainty of my future and how every choice I make now will have an arguably significant consequence on it. I found myself wishing I was back in secondary school, when life was simpler. But was it really? Past me thought of the Cambridge IGCSE exams as life or death, it is just that the current me has gone through it and is going through harder things that I think it was an easier time. Which, in retrospect, is comforting to know. Dreading the task at hand because it may change the course of your life is normal, but it is just an anticipatory fear of not being able to mitigate the negative outcomes, if any.

 

It is reassuring to know that no matter how worried we are about a current hurdle, it will eventually pass. The reason why we get anxious or even avoidant towards tasks at hand is because we often think that the future may be worse than what we hope it becomes. But what if it changes our future for the better instead? We should remind ourselves to reflect on our past successes and the worries that led up to them. More often than not, the worries do turn out to be less of a monster than we thought they were. It is crucial for us to remember that we are only human, everyone is struggling in their own way; everyone is fighting their own silent battles. We should try not to overly critique ourselves by comparing what we have achieved to what others have achieved. You would be surprised by the amount of people who look at what you have achieved and wish they did that too!

When we inevitably achieve something great, we are prone to attributing our successes to external factors and berating our own performances. This usually stems from constantly tugging at the idea that we will do badly at something, and when we end up performing well, we often get impostor syndrome which leads us to believe that we are not deserving of what we have achieved. This is self-doubt talking, a common thing due to the fear of not living up to expectations, but also being disappointed when falling short at something. More often than not, we end up sabotaging our successes by thinking we cannot do them well or we just happened to do them well by chance. This makes the idea of an uncertain future even more bleak because the outcome seems to be less than desirable no matter what. 

 

Evidently, uncertainty is a paradox. We tend to avoid it in fear of altering our lives completely, be it in a good way or a bad way; yet, uncertainty allows us to escape the monotonous and repetitive lives we are used to in the moment. So it really is not a bad thing. Our lives would be extremely boring and pointless without uncertainty. If the future is certain, we would not push ourselves past our limits to become the best versions of ourselves that we can be; we might not even try to generally better ourselves because what use would it be if we already know what is coming and everything has already been set in stone? An uncertain future is actually our optimal option here, because then we have the ability to reshape it at any given point in time. Therefore, we should shift our attention to focusing on doing our best in the present moment while simultaneously alleviating anxiety by making sure we take good care of ourselves, both physically and mentally.  

Sourced from: https://scatteredquotes.com/topics/future

At the end of the day, we should be optimistic and face uncertainty with curiosity. Being able to adapt to whatever life throws at us is what makes us, us. After all, we are simply human. So, we should guide our actions towards desirable outcomes instead of being paralysed by the aspect of uncertainty. The perceived ‘too much control’ over our future, or the lack thereof, depending on what aspect makes you anxious, is more normal than we think. Changing our thoughts and beliefs about the source of our anxieties is a good place to start. Believe that things will happen at the right time and the right way;  that everything will eventually work out for you. Trust me, the stars will align. 

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