Every time my husband and I finish another episode on our PVR and the on-screen announcer says, “Scenes from next week’s episode…”, I cry “no scenes! no scenes!”. I mean, I get why TV producers do it – they want to give you a preview of what’s to come so you’re sure to tune in when the next episode becomes available.
But I don’t want to know what comes next.
I like the anticipation of not knowing specifically what’s coming. The surprise that awaits me in seven days – or, lets be real, the surprise that awaits me the next time I press Play on my streaming service of choice. 🙂 There’s something delicious about wondering and guessing where the story is going to go or what the characters are going to do next, and then watching it play out.
For me, anyways.
I’m listening to a book called, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. In it, Gottlieb describes her work as a therapist and as a patient, and how the two worlds collide in internal and external ways. The story that resonated with me today was a discussion Gottlieb had with Julie, a young patient dying of cancer, regarding time travel as a way to see what the future holds. Julie talked about a dream where time travel was possible so she could see a future she’d never have and she commented that even if time travel were possible, she’d rather not know, but be able to contribute to the future from the here and now.
To her, the unknown future and the hope she has for the future lives of her husband, her family, her friends, was better anticipated than knowing what the reality would end up to be. That the surprise of what was to come for them was better left to the future, where it could unfold as it should.
I thought that was a really positive way to look at it…a hopeful anticipation of the future.
A way to influence the future as opposed to looking back on what already was.
She seemed to understand that she could have impact on their future, today, and focus on contributing to that future through her actions instead of rushing ahead and seeing the destination but ignoring the journey.
I know it seems ridiculous to draw parallels between story lines of a TV show and the words of a dying (albeit, fictional) woman, but this is what resonated with me – we can choose to see the future scenes or we can choose to be present today, to influence our future through our intentions and our actions.
And those are the scenes I want to experience 🙂