I think about the many ways my life would turn out, like in a role-play game where each choice leads to another set of probabilities, possibilities, and alternatives.
However, unlike a game where I can always return to the next save point if I don’t like how things are going, there’s no do-over in real life—only real consequences and sunk costs.
While I feel internal forces are raging inside me (like intrinsic motivation and values), external forces are also pulling me from different directions (like family and society expectations and responsibilities), which gives me the illusion that decision making should be done only within a small wiggle room, devoid of creativity and risks.
Perhaps the beauty of growing old lies in the experience. Because now, I can see patterns of action-consequence combinations and somehow have the confidence that things will be okay even when I don’t see the whole picture yet.
My recent read also reminded me what trusting the Lord truly means:
As life got messier and more complicated, I came to see—here and there, now and then, or at times with sudden, crashing clarity—how much my entire existence was actually out of my control, and in fact always had been.
The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs