Carpe Diem

Here’s what I find fascinating:  When something goes bad, I find myself imagining all possible outcomes.  I imagine things that could happen, consequences for my mistakes or misdoings.  I imagine a chain reaction, a string, of bad things to come when something goes wrong.  But ultimately, here’s the thing, I don’t think any consequence I’ve imagined has ever happened.  Something else intervenes, finding a way to either relieve me or to stress me out more.  

For example, on Friday before my tennis practice, I went on a run by the Charles.  I had only 10 minutes before practice, but coach always required we run.  I ran by the river and soon, I found that the warm weather distracted me from time.  Until I found out I’d run too far to get to practice on time.  Instead of running merely a mile round-trip, I had run a mile one-way.  Looking at my watch, I saw I had only 3 minutes before practice began; it was 5:57 PM.  Naturally I began to freak out.  Along the river, you can see the school, but it seems to take forever to reach it when you actually start running.  I estimated I’d return to school at around 6:05, which was five minutes late for practice.  In my head, I began to panic.  I imagined all of the consequences.  Coach loved to make the team run as a punishment.  I thought he’d make the whole team run 5 laps around four courts together when I arrived.   I imagined the whole team staring at me as I walking onto the courts.  I thought about trying to put on a straight face, yet still feeling super embarrassed.  I thought about how my parents would be mad at me.  I thought about how Coach might make me pick up all the tennis balls after practice…

Then, I arrived at the Athletics Center.  I ran into the building, grabbed my tennis bag, and sprinted downstairs into the courts.  I checked my watch: 6:04.  But as I was entering the courts, three Varsity Tennis boys walked out of the courts.  Why were they just walking out?  When I fully entered the tennis courts, I found 2 more senior varsity tennis boys sitting on the chairs talking with each other.  On the farthest court, two boys were finishing a one set match against each other.  And my coach was nowhere to be seen.  Nor were any of the girls varsity players on the team.  Now that was really unexpected.  

While I was running, I had never even considered the possibility that no one was on the courts, nevermind considering that practice had been cancelled that night.  All that worrying I was doing while running was to met by relief.  No, the team wouldn’t have to run 5 laps around four courts.  No, I wouldn’t have to pick up all the balls after practice.  No, my coach wasn’t even there to chastise me.  

I suppose sometimes the consequences I imagine are too extreme to be realistic, which is why they [hopefully] never follow through.  I find the consequences I imagine exacerbate as my panic levels increase.  My observation this week is that life does not unfold the way one can anticipate it.  In fact, very few can anticipate life.  It almost just…happens.  So being present in the moment, practicing carpe diem, is how I’ll cope with the deluge of potential consequences from my imagination.