"God, grant me the courage to change that which I can, the serenity to accept that which I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference."
- Serenity Prayer

I find that each new year is usually better than the last. Which runs contrary to the beliefs of the Good Ole' Days. Or that your college years were the best years of your life. Or that childhood was a magically warm and fuzzy time.

Not that I'm saying those beliefs are false. Childhood was definitely warm and fuzzy. I had Puff the Magic Dragon, kids nowadays have Harry Potter. Both were and are totally real to children.

But, for me, I believe the best years are yet to come.

More and More Responsibilities

My sentiment comes partly from my beliefs of the future.

I believe that parenthood is going to be a wonderful thing. I believe that owning my own business is going to be a wonderful thing. I believe that I'm going to be able to have a greater impact on my environment and society as I gain more experience in life.

That means earning more responsibilities, however.

To that, I say: Cool! I'd love to have more responsibilities. Hopefully I'll also have the knowledge to make the right decisions with those responsibilities. Experience is what will give me that knowledge. So since experience grows as time progresses, the future means more experience as well.

I realize this is a very strange frame of mind. It's not very common. Most people want to release themselves of responsibilities. They want to return to a simpler time in their lives, not make their lives more complicated.

The past sure seems like a simpler time. An easier time. With very few responsibilities. That's why it is looked upon so fondly. Those were truly magical times, weren't they? All you had to care about back then were your toys, your grades, or just yourself.

Looking Back with Hindsight

Hindsight is what makes the past seem easier. Since you're looking back with all this accumulated knowledge, you can clearly see all of your decisions and outcomes.

However, if you were to ask your past self if life was easy, I'll bet your past self wouldn't agree.

Case in point: When you look back at your college days, you probably smile at all the fun you had, right? All the parties, the friends, the adventures.

While you were actually in college, I'll bet you had a different view. You were probably stressing over your exams, thinking about that cute classmate who doesn't even know you're alive, or worrying about what you'll do when you graduate. It probably felt like the hardest time in your life.

That's one of the paradoxes of hindsight. It empowers you to rationalize the past into any view you want.

Looking Forward with Apprehension

Most people look at the future with apprehension and anxiety. That's fairly normal. There are so many unanswered questions, so many unimaginable outcomes. Will I be successful? Will I get married? Will I have children? Will global warming destroy us all?

You'd be a fool not to be worried, right?

This comes from the fear of the unknown. It's human nature to fear what we don't know. Since we don't know the future, we fear it. Simple as that.

I'll bet when you were in high school, you were terrified of college. Excited about it too, hopefully, but maybe a bit frightened. Will I make new friends? Will I do well in my new classes? Did I choose the right major?

Now that you've gone through college, you can see that those fears were largely unfounded. You were able to handle all the things that frightened you. But at the time, those fears seemed very real.

Hopeful of the Future

I tend to look at the future with hope instead of apprehension. All those nagging, unanswerable questions are really just challenges and opportunities. They're goals for which to strive. And serendipitous fortunes that will happen if they're meant to happen.

It's like the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the courage to change that which I can, the serenity to accept that which I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference."

If the Big One hits, the dreaded earthquake that sinks California into the ocean, then, well, I'll deal with it the best I can. Or I'll be swimming with the fishes. Either way, it's not going to do me any good to worry about it now.

If a smaller earthquake hits, then I'll deal with that too. Hopefully I'll be somewhat prepared for it with earthquake kits and first-aid training. I can't do anything about the Big One, but I can prepare for smaller, more likely earthquakes.

In the meantime, I'll continue through life, learning new subjects and gaining new experiences to better prepare me for new responsibilities. Along the way, I'm sure I'll spot a few great opportunities, business- or relationship-wise, and hopefully I'll be wise enough to take them.

And those possibilities are what really, truly excite me.

It's All in Your Mind

It's really all a matter of perspective. The glass is half-empty, half-full, so to speak. It sounds stupid simple, but it's an incredibly difficult principle to teach. Or learn.

Some are born with a hopeful outlook. Others learn it through difficult experiences. Me, I had to learn it the hard way. It took almost getting myself killed while sky diving to open my eyes.

Now that I've taken in this lesson, however, each year is better than the next. It's not positive-thinking mumbo jumbo or self-affirmation psychobabble. It's not even drugs. It's just a simple outlook and a sense of hope.

I'm not saying my life won't be full of problems. There will still be awful days where I absolutely dread getting out of bed. But each problem is a challenge to be faced. Each mistake is a lesson to be learned.

And therein lays the key. The mental switch. It doesn't just turn a half-empty glass into a half-full glass. It turns the half-empty glass into a business that fills up glasses. That's the opportunity within the problem.

This year is almost over. And next year is going to be even better!

. . .

Which do you think will be/was better: the future or the past?