You cannot look forward to an uncertain future.

Desiring the past cannot bring it back.

Benjamin Franklin seemed to think the two certainties of life were death and taxes; Einstein played on this quip and determined it was the universe and human stupidity that were infinite. I suggest instead the two irrefutable principles are an uncertain future and an inaccessible past.

Although we know these two things to be true, we cannot seem to embrace either reality. I have found myself caught between these two cliff — a song, a picture, a phrase will bring back the “good ole days” in my mind. High school, college, anything earlier than fall 2016. It makes me happy, yet sad at the same time. This nostalgia feels like a sweet sensation, but is really an addictive drug. That “sweet sorrow” and longing always leave me wanting for something that is already past. Although I know that those things cannot return, I keep longing for them. I fulfill the words of the “prophet” Gotye, “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness”. It isn’t that these feelings and memories are bad, but that they need to be taken in the proper context. Those things provided contentment at that time, and provide a basis for reflection.

They are, however, in an inaccessible past.

So, I look eagerly to the future. My pay raise starts in July. I will likely receive a promotion before the end of the summer. I begin to get excited as I see the light piercing into the darkness, heralding the other end of the abysmal tunnel I have traversed for to long. Yet as I consider the present, and recent events, I also am filled with cynical dread. If the events of the past few months have taught me anything, it is that life can throw a curve ball at your blind side, 100 mph, and then come kick you while you are down with a studded, steel toe boot. I also begin to feel overwhelmed by the obstacles I know still lie ahead, as well as the ones I am currently climbing. It is all so draining and daunting.

I cannot say I am pacified by the remaining option: the present. The present has all the sting and residual sorrow of the past with all the fear and anxiety of the future. If I take the “good ole days” and combine them with the “shining future”, I can cope in the present. Take things day by day. “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Sufficient indeed.

Prayer, coffee, and positive thinking — the sun always rises.

In the mean time, I need to contribute what I can to the people around me who also have their “good ole days”, “dark pasts”, dreary days, cheery days, anxious futures, and bright tomorrows. As Charles Dickens aptly said, “No life is wasted that is spent lessening the burden of another man.”