Sometimes life is a free fall where we are at the whim of the wind that whips past our cheeks and howls in our ears. We are panicked, fumbling for the parachute's release while watching the distant ground inch closer and closer still. We try to slow our descent, to no avail, and try to prepare ourselves for the punch that the ground will throw. But it is useless. We have no idea what lies ahead of us, yet all of our energy is thrown into trying to change what is unknown to us.

We are conditioned to worry, to fret over the little details that contribute to the outcome but are out of our control. We worry about our appearances, social statuses, financial states, but they all tie back to one thing:the future. However, the peculiar thing about the future is that it is something that we believe to have complete control over, yet, at the same time, we have no clue as to how to get it under our noses, to have it at our whim. To worry about not having insight into what will go right and what will go wrong tomorrow is like waiting around with a storm cloud looming overhead instead of relishing in the sunshine that always fights its way through.

The first quarter of our lives (maybe more) is dedicated to the rest of it, and it's amazing how much stress is accumulated on its behalf. Nights of sleep are wasted, moments of laughter are forgone and even friendships are ended simply because we are worried about what lies ahead on the path that we follow. Undoubtedly, we have a certain amount of control over the success that we will or will not have, but there comes a point when it is time to let the unknown of the future remain unknown and realize that no matter how hard we try, we cannot have a plan for everything that will transpire. That is life, and it's more important how we respond to these misgivings than it is about the measures we've gone through to attempt to prevent them.

The future only spirals out of control if we work against it and try to persuade it to move in a certain direction. The spiraling direction that our lives tend to take on as we try to dictate our futures is exasperating, and it takes patience and understanding to be able to overcome the sheer terror that comes with moving endlessly into the indefinite future.

However, a calm comes after the storm, and finding solace in the shallow of the day is only a matter of waiting for the circling clouds to pass. The rain seems to fall endlessly in sheets that wash away the certainty of tomorrow, and thunder echoes between mountains, bouncing around through the air and teasing feeble ears. But when the sun finally burns through the black of the clouds and the gloom of the rain, the warmth that it holds is enchanting. The grass dries, and we lay down, relishing at how much bluer the sky looks and how much softer the grass feels between our toes than it did before the storm. A breeze slightly wanes, but nothing will be worse than the wind that snapped trees and screamed its way through the forests. Without the unknown of the storm, though, there would be no calm, and we would be unable to bask in the warmth of the clear day that lies right ahead.