Faith in the Future

I took an action yesterday I have not taken in a very long time:  I started planning as if something which I don't know will happen would happen.

This is not like me.  I am typically a semi-active reactionary:  I am somewhat proactive about things that I know are coming up.  I am very seldom active about things for which I have no certainty that they are coming up.

Here is the odd thing:  the experience was not what I imagined it would be.

The picture I had in my mind before all this occurred was myself ploughing time and energy into something that was not going anywhere. I would awake from my dream at some point only to discover that all the energy had been wasted.  Instead, what I found was that I was more energetic than I have been in a great while.  Within a few hours I had created a series of tasks, graded them as to importance, mentally developed a schedule and had begun to move forward on them.  At the end of the day I walked away with a sense of accomplishment and the anticipation of getting more of the items knocked off of the list.

I have been trying to wrap my mind around this ever since.

This doesn't make sense to me.  Yes, the items in question needed to be attended to, but I have been dragging my feet about many of them. Why?  I guess there is a sense that nothing is going to happen one way or the other.  If I'm diligent and quick about them, it is seldom noticed; if I get them done within the allotted time frame, they'll be done as they were expected.

The difference?  Faith.  Faith in the future.

Faith in an outcome which I don't know will happen - but acting as if I believe it will.  Faith that plans and hopes may actually materialize, and that I need to be ready for them when they do.  That when the time comes, I need to be prepared instead of scrambling around.

Beyond this faith, I find a nascent self confidence inside of myself, a confidence that says that a different potential future is possible.  That whatever I bring to every table is more than simply filling up another chair or being another convenient body to assign responsibilities to.  A confidence that what I am and what I can do is sufficient for things to move forward.

I'm almost scared to write about these things, lest in an orgy of self discovery I crush the very things that has suddenly appeared after years of looking for it.  There's a vague sense that such things need to be nurtured rather than run over in haste.

But here, in the most ordinary of seasons and months, I think I have made a connection that has eluded me for years:  one can have confidence in the future and act on it in the absence of assurance if one believes. Rather than creating a frivolous sense of spending time, it can lead to the most productive and guided use of time because suddenly there is something to work towards, rather than the vast steppe of just another day.