Where are our limits?

06/06/2025 Nilson Lattari

We are often making plans for the future, and these plans often change depending on our age. They may be long-term or short-term.
When we are younger, plans are long-term, more elaborate, and as we get older, they tend to be shorter, because we are in a hurry to enjoy them.
I’m not saying that we must abandon them, but plans are hard to keep going. Still, planning for the future gives meaning to our days. Of course, our horizons become more accessible and closer according to our life experience and opportunities. When we are younger, long-term plans tend to be immature and more dreamy. They follow our will, and we don’t yes have enough life experience to teach us how to overcome obstacles or deal with the black swans in our life’s journey: the unforeseen events. By the way, people often say, “Humanity plans and God disagrees”.
Of course, we shouldn’t blame God for our mistakes or the difficulties we face in life. The stones along our path are not necessarily evidence of divine presence or signs that He wants to disturb us for fun. Others say these difficulties are lessons. I don’t believe that God plans traps for us or uses His power to teach us lessons like a father who punishes his children.
We are the ones who are foolish, inexperienced and sometimes arrogant. During our lives, it is life experience that teaches us. Even then, we can still be surprised by traps set by our fellow human beings, and not by God.
On the other hand, we shouldn’t treat God as if He were a fool, asking Him absurd and incoherent requests: God is not an idiot.
Yes, we do what we can and God does what He wants – but in reality, I don’t believe that life works like that.
God’s rule is not to give us what we want. He created the world, but didn’t create “our” world, the one made by us. In the end, why would ask God for a car if He isn’t a car manufacturer? If we ask God for things from this world, it is possible that He would take them from someone else to satisfy our wishes, and this hypothetical situation wouldn’t be fair. Our life experience, if we want to build our future, must be based on wisdom and knowledge. Our task is to take care of our health and show persistence in order to live well.
Plans are made of three things. Planning carefully, within our limits and possibilities. Giving our bodies the attention they deserve to face the future with effort and spirituality. And finally, patience to wait for the right moment to act without anxiety, as if the future could suddenly end.
Life experience teaches us these feelings throughout our lives. Living is watching time pass and experiencing the future every day. Our learning is constant and begins at sunrise. Each day is an opportunity to think about our next steps.
When we grow older, we may think it’s too late to build our future, and that maybe we wasted time chasing unsuccessful goals. But, without knowing, we were saving life experience for the future.
For some people, life experience is like savings and assets. For others, the future is about living with pleasure and wisdom.
We will never have everything that we wish for because our desire for living and experiencing is so great that we don’t notice it. So, there is a secret in everything: measuring for living is the key to knowing if our wishes fit in our existence.