Will Future Torture or Enrapture?

Future is unknown
Nothing about it is shown
And so future we do not own
So confusion has grown

Now we may plan
But, God may ban
We may think we can
But God is superior to man

We can never predict
As fate will contradict
Through a different verdict
But, God, we cannot indict

Future is a guarded secret
Which may give a regret
Or success we may get
None can know it, I bet

For future if we carefully save
We will not be poverty's slave
We will not maroon in worry-wave
We can in life very boldly behave

If our plans have loopholes
We will have dolorous souls
Will be perforated our goals
Our losses, the World condoles

Plans can be for future made
With the hope of getting shade
All our duties we must not evade
Real grit must be by us displayed

Future is surely an uncertainty
It may give calamity or equanimity
Hoping has got an excellent utility
Future is safe via a sterling quality

Future will become excellent
If using of present is intelligent
Better to be in life boldly nonchalant
Calmly waiting is in itself a fine talent

As a secret let future remain
Let us postpone our pain
If it becomes a gain
We will feel immensely fine

-Mailrangam Visvanathan Venkataraman-

           

What would you like to accomplish in your future? Do you have great expectations about it? You may say you want to have a beautiful life, rich family, a never ending success, without imperfection? Well, to achieve all those magnificent dreams you can’t just imagine those things will happen in a twinkling. What you need to do is to react, do real action, don’t just boast around. This poem thoroughly represents the theme “Self-Development”; how future is explained, how to harmonize our plans and our future, and how God partakes in building up our future.

            The very first stanza shows the real state of the future itself. The poet wrote that future is unknown. We can’t predict what will happen to us later in the future. Things that we have planned will (not) only be fulfilled, depending on God’s will. Just like the writer tried to convey through the third and fourth line in this stanza; “And so future we don’t own, so confusion has grown.”

            You might have and kept asking questions why God doesn’t give us a complete vision of our future later? Why don’t we know our future from now? The second and third stanzas attempt to answer your and others’ questions about how we know our future. Since humans are only humans, we are God’s creations, God is always superior to human beings.

            Imagine we all know that 20 years from now one of you will be the president of Indonesia, what do you feel now? You may turn out to be an arrogant, high-hatted, and swelled-headed person as you know exactly that you will be a president in the future. However, if the reverse things happen to you, let’s say, 20 years later you will experience such dreadful natural disasters like tsunami, floods, and volcano eruption, what is in your mind now? Yapp, you will undergo such a terrified and shuddered life, right? You might  drown into deep eeriness, stop seeking your success and just simply let them go awry.

             Well, let’s refer back to the poetry, in the fifth stanza, it is engraved that future is a guarded secret, yet, in the next stanzas, the poet composed the poem in such ways to remind us of the need to synchronize our plans and our future. None of us know in what ways we achieve our goals and how we end up later. It first appeared when you first entered this much-loved English Department. You barely had an idea of what would happen and experience, what grades you will attain, who your lecturers are, what kind of lecturing you will obtain, etc.

            In order to reach the maximum success in your life, just make it specified, in your learning process now, you have to try your best, study and struggle hard, and always remember to give your adoration to the Almighty Lord. In the same way as the poet noted down in the seventh and eighth stanzas; plans can be made, dedication can be changeable, and efforts can be strived, yet, it all reverts to God’s will.

            All the things that we do nowadays will absolutely affect our future, including the good and the bad. What we need to do is to strengthen our faith and believe that God is giving the best to us. Then, it becomes our duty to pursue our dreams and continue struggling. Keep it in your mind that God makes every single thing so delightful and pleasing in the right time and in the right place. Last but not least, as I watched an inspirational video entitled ‘Life is like a cup of coffee’ by an unknown author, it is proposed that, “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything.” Live simply. Speak kindly. Care deeply. Love generously. Cheers!           

Poetry source: www.poemhunter.com

Special thanks to mbak Endah. super motivator! 

*well, this was an article published in my faculty's magz where I belonged.. longed for.. for.. for.. like ever..