Senior. I hate that word. Not just because I am one of them, but my anger rages from pointless things connected to it.

For seniors, it is officially prohibited to say, “I am not sure what to do,” when people ask about plans after graduation. For many believe seniors must have finished preparing for their future, no mercy is left for those without the must-have-by-now ambition. Having nothing other than a shameful reply, they can only feel inferior to their ready-made peers.

Sound familiar? That is because we all share similar stories. We live up to a primetime (what people say) for doing things in our lives: entering university at 20; possibly getting married in around our early 30s; at last relaxing in a park nearby on weekends in our peaceful 70s. We strive to, if not expect to, tailor our future to the so-called “decent life.”

Still, having plans itself falls short in giving enough consolation. We know all too well that the best-laid plans do fall apart. When going all out for our goals, there are too many what-ifs on our way. Then, we start to falter on our yellow brick roads, questioning, “What if I cannot make it?”

This gets even worse for those victims, who have already hit rock bottom. Having a dream is more like an ugly nightmare than a fantasy to whoever witnessed that misery called, failure.

In the beginning, everyone starts off by fancying a better version of myself in their future. It is so fascinating to see our accomplished selves, it is too difficult to resist embarking on new challenges over and over.

But once again, we end up finding nothing has changed at all. Our dream is still too far off. After a couple of more frustrations, we only discover our worry-ridden souls surprisingly dark, twisted, and powerless.

At this point, we can possibly diagnose a common illness from the fog-shrouded future?anxiety. Upon the principle that the future is synonymous with uncertainty, hardly do we harbor a perfect sense of confidence on what would possibly come across. Thus, we barely see the bright side no matter how promising our future might be.

Being an ordinary person, full of mistakes, we do not see the best way to solve the problem. We thereby try to get rid of our misgivings or to pretend as if they do not exist. Just like we say, “Ignorance is bliss,” we often pick up fake solutions that extend our time in a more convenient way.

I agree. It is tempting to believe as such. But for our own sake, let me make this clear: Reality does not really care about us nor stays apart from anxiety. We are no less vulnerable to be swamped with our worries, and we cannot entirely oust it from our lives. However skillful we are in deceiving ourselves, we cannot deal with the very source of pain. As long as we are on a step behind our future, there is NO place we can hide from it.

I know. This sounds discouraging. The underlying idea, in fact, is more of hope.

My point is, we should focus more on what deserves our struggle. We cannot do away with ever-haunting anxiety. Still, we can retrieve our upper hand over our suffering by fully embracing our limitations. Take a moment and ask yourself. Is there any point in shedding our tears on things beyond our hands? By isolating ourselves from those distractions, we may now concentrate on what is on our hands?the present.

The only way we can make our tomorrow better is to keep seeking what might be done for today. The most self-destructive part of the anxiety is it blinds us about our immediate priority. Nothing changes for sure, by just weeping over how miserable our pain is.

Just because I obnoxiously lectured about anxiety so far, that does not mean I do not suffer from it. In fact, I am the last person you would like to be.
I stumble every day, covering myself with badly swollen scars all over me. I thus live in fully-charged anxiety, and I am quite sure this will not get any better throughout my life.

I do get hurt all the time; however, I do not fear it anymore.
I was once that overly anxious kid whose worries eventually have went way beyond one’s control. Any sort of professional help barely worked on me. And it only made me get weaker, relying on something else. Then, another brand-new fear caught me: this life, stuffed with medications, would last forever. To win this game, I needed a much stronger remedy.

So I made the hardest decision of embracing the holy truth:
Life sucks.
The only difference compared to the old-fragile-me starts from not controlling what I cannot control. Instead, I started to embrace my anxiety and see it as my own opportunity to grow stronger. Once I see myself fighting against even harsher challenges, now I welcome injury.
To get back to the point, what my past angry years taught me is: Let the anxiety prey on you.

You may draw your future in the best way of which you could only imagine in your dreams. And you may suffer from the byproducts stemming from the fear of losing it.

However, herein lies the magic.
While you screech in pain, none of your efforts can be spared to fight against that miserable today. The belief? someday, these challenges shall be conquered? gives you the strength to take one last step forward, even when you are beaten, broken, and wretched.

Again, there is no hideout from anxiety, and it will never happen. No matter how painful it is, just embrace your inner turmoil until you reach the dream moment. Thereby you will keep pushing yourself into a new and higher level. When the job is done, finally at your destination, then you may let anxiety free.
I will not say this always guarantees a massive success. For the worst scenario is likely to be at anytime. But if you ought to suffer anyway, is it not more worthwhile to have today’s struggle for a better tomorrow? Once you see what is so good about staying anxious, trust me. Your golden day is not far away from there.