– Rainer Maria Rilke
I belong to a wonderful book club, and one night something that surprised me came up. One of the members mentioned that the book we were reading was so good that she couldn’t take the tension anymore, so she skipped ahead to the end of the book to find out what happened. When she said this, several other members said that they had done the same thing. ALL of them regretted it because it ruined the reading of the book for them. This surprised me because I have never in my life even considered skipping to the end of a book. To me, the pleasure is in the journey: I LOVE wondering and caring deeply about what may happen next. People often think that it would be great to be able to see the future clearly and know everything that is going to happen in advance, but I think that sounds horrible. While gifted psychics can often foresee big destined events in the future and where things are generally heading in the moment, given free will and the innumerable other factors at play, most of what will happen in the future isn’t set in stone. This is what makes life interesting and worth living! If you’re tied up in knots wondering and worrying about where the future will take you, I encourage you to view your life like a great novel, and try to enjoy not knowing how the story will end.