nanovivid

I was doing some thinking recently about my direction in life, and I understood with new clarity at least part of why I’m lacking direction lately. Back in high school, my family started attending a nondenominational charismatic church (along with having a lot of other similar influences around me). There was a lot of "end times" theology flying around, and somewhere along the line I got it into my head that there was very little chance of me actually reaching adulthood. In fact, I was pretty dang sure that the world was going to end before I finished high school. I remember the pastor of that church saying with absolute certainty that "The full day of darkness will be here by the year 2000." Now, I have no idea what the hell that really means, but after we passed the millennium with nary a peep from the antichrist, I really started to get suspicious.

As I got into my later college years, I wasn’t really believing the whole end times philosophy quite so much any more, but it was there in the back of my mind. Thus, the feeling of not needing to make long-term goals or plans for my life persisted. It was much easier to just float along like I always had rather than examine the direction my life was going, especially if it wasn’t going to be a very long one. Seriously… why plan for the future if there isn’t going to be one?

If you read back through my journal, you’ll see that the past six months have brought some pretty significant changes in the way I view and interact with the world. Along with that, I’m not sure when the world is going to end. I’ve definitely learned to be very wary of anyone claiming to know.

Still, this leaves me with a mindset of non-planning that I need to address. It looks like there’s going to be a future after all, and I need to engage it, not just let it slip by.

♫ U2 - Until The End Of The World