I was watching Futurama today and I noticed something in the opening credits that really got me thinking. You know how they have a funny subtitle right after the Planet Express ship flies through the credits? It’ll say something like “When you see the robot, drink!”, or “Controlling you with a chip in your butt since 1999”. Anyway, this one said, “You can’t prove it won’t happen.” That’s just such an interesting thought. You can never actually prove that the world won’t eventually be like it is in that fictional cartoon universe. Sure, it’s not the most plausible reality, but it’s entirely possible. Any future reality is possible, you never really know what will happen. Do you think in the 1930’s people thought about how maybe one day we would develop a doomsday weapon capable of destroying the entirety of the human species? Nope, they were all worrying about the financial collapse and the economic future of the country, but less than 20 years later, with the creation of the atom bomb, that reality happened. No one saw it coming, but it changed life as we know it forever. You might have an idea of what could probably happen. For example, you’ll probably wake up tomorrow like usual, eat breakfast, take a shower, and go about the day’s business. However, you can’t know that for certain. The power might go out while you’re asleep and throw all of your plans out the window and nothing will go like you expected. According to some people, the world might end in December of 2012. If that’s the case, well then shit, that sucks. But you can never know for certain if it will actually happen.

The point is this. You can never ever know what the future will bring. No matter how much foresight you have and how much you plan, any random event could occur. Worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow is a completely useless function. Why waste your precious time thinking about what could happen, when you should be focusing on what’s happening now? If you spend all of your time and energy focused on the future, you may very well not have any time left for the present. Now I’m not saying never to think about tomorrow. You should have goals and hopes and dreams. Things that you want to work towards. But don’t forget to actually work towards them, every single day. Don’t worry about how the economy’s bad and you might not be able to find a job in your field. Just be the best you can be every day, never give up working at your passion, and you’ll find that dream job you wanted. And if not, then shit, that sucks, but you can’t plan for defeat. If you fail, good for you! You fucking tried at least. Now get up and try some more. The future is uncertain, more so now than it has been in a long time, but that shouldn’t stop you. You might fail, you might end up poor, you might end up burning alive in some Michael Bay-like supernova/asteroid explosion, but you can never know that for sure, so why would you plan for the negatives?

Every day you aren’t dead is a fucking miracle. Act like it. Make the most of your time. Carpe the shit out of that diem. Quit bitching about the negative possibilities and work for the best future you can imagine. It’ll get better or it won’t, but sitting there afraid of what could happen is no way to spend the good days you have now. If you have a passion, work to master it. Don’t compromise for some shitty desk job because you’re afraid you’ll end up on the streets. Do what needs to be done every day to keep the dream alive, or you’ll end up living in the nightmare you fear.