Only God knows the number of films and books based on one, simple concept: the ability to know what is going to happen before it happens. The mere thought ignites our imagination and questions spiral out of control: What if I could see the future? Could I win the lottery? Could I be an outlaw? How would they stop me? Would I be responsible for preventing tragedies? What if only ten people could see the future? Could we fight them? What if everyone could? How would we live? What if we could only see 10 seconds ahead? Five?
Then the reality of our shortsightedness turns us around and forces us to question the past: If I could have seen the future, would I still have said yes? If only he could have known what was going to happen, he never would have driven that fast.
It amazes me how many important decisions seem to be made in the shortest amount of time – at least it seems like an instant. Truth is, the most important decisions in our lives are not single choices but thousands of little ones. It is the reason time flies. We scurry across countless little choices to get to the big one, only to find the choice was made before we arrived.
Willingly or unwillingly we jump into this roulette wheel, and must decide in four years who we really are, what we really believe and what we really want to do with the rest of our lives. But unlike the helpless, white ball that waits to be assigned a number and color, we have the ability to choose.
Whether you have just begun your time at ACU or feel like you have already left, I challenge you: fight the tendency to let the spinning blur of circumstances choose for you. Almost every happening in this world is beyond your control, but do not let it swallow you. The world is full of red twelves, black thirty-fives, and red nineteens who allowed themselves to be smacked around, settling wherever they landed.
We cannot see the future, so we must pay attention to what we can see: the present. Make good choices now, no matter how small, and you will soon find the future does not look so grim.
