Wonders of life

Wonder pt. 2

Wonder

Is getting caught up in the "what if". The inability to enjoy or experience what is right in front of you. The inability to fully indulge in the moment that you are having right then and there. Much like a teenager longing for adulthood and freedom so much that their teen years end up being lost because of their desire to see what else is out there for them. Venturing out into the world before actually knowing our own identity can cause the downfall of our ability to form our own personalities. Allowing influences from other people's experiences rather than our own to steer our decision making can create issues in our own personal development. We can begin to fall into the mentality that we are smaller or less important than what we actually are.
This trap we can fall into is not unique to each individual, it's something we collectively experience. Simply take into account how we have sent men and women into outer space rather than learning about the depths of the ocean that are right here on our own planet. Or rather how we are looking to space to find new places to go rather than how to improve or preserve (and ultimately refine) our conditions here on earth. This is the same issue we run into with our own personal development. Constantly wanting to look outwards, out to what other people do and somehow follow along. Wonder can lead us down a dangerous path that we may not be able to get off. As we wonder more and more about what else we can get from the world rather than what we can contribute to it we ultimately become dependent on what has been constructed for us to believe is "impossible".
We wonder and worry and stress about what lies ahead for us in life. We even wonder about the choices we made before and how differently things could have turned out if we had made a different decision or gone down a different path. We wonder about who would still be in our lives or who wouldn't be here now if we had said something differently or acted a different way.
Wonder is most importantly an essential quality to the hidden landscape of humanity. Wonder is what ultimately inspires, unites, and tears us apart. It inspires us to move forward or to look back to have a better understanding of what happened before. It unites us in the quest to find out what lies ahead for us as a human race. Yet it still tears us apart because there are so many view-points that are trying to be shared combined with not enough people willing to either come together to find a compromise or simply to listen to what someone else has to say. These elements are ultimately left for us to figure out on our own, only to leave us wondering again how we can accomplish that and it ultimately becomes a cycle as we return to the "what if".