Risky Business

If you had a crystal ball and you only get a peak at one moment in your future, what would you like to see?  Do you want to know who you'll be married to? Do you want to know what kind of retirement you'll get to have? Do you want to see what your kids would be like as adults? Do you want to know if long-term investment will pay off?  Do you want to know who will be at your funeral?  Do you want to see if you'll live a long healthy life?  Looking at a snapshot of your future will definitely provide more certainty and a lot of people will probably trade or pay a handsome price to get a glimpse of what is to come, right?

Life is volatile, risky, and unpredictable.  We get butterflies when we contemplate switching jobs for a higher pay but with a different boss, we suffer when we choose between the person that loves us and the person that we love, and we fight with our partners trying to figure out what's best for our children.  Life is full of uncertainties but our tendencies to seek out certainties in life, makes life even more mysterious.

What if instead of a peak of the crystal ball, a session with the psychic, or a ride on the time machine, you actually know your future?  You know that you should study music instead of engineering, you'll meet the love of your life at age 30 even though you thought John was the one for a split second.  You will own your own business at age 40 and you'll have 3 children and have a beautiful house in Florida.  Before you die, you will have 10 grandchildren and you'll be surrounded by people that you love and treasure.  Or, forget about school and retirement, life will end abruptly for you so you better start enjoying it now! 

If you know your future, will it take the fun out of living?  Isn't life meant to be uncertain so that we get to experience, feel, and think in ways that we wouldn't be able to if we had all the answers?  Life is risky business! Next time, if you get a bad hand dealt to you, remember that we earthlings are simply here to expand our capacities otherwise we'd all come equipped with a crystal ball.  Don't you think?