Shrouded in Mist
overcoming anxiety for an uncertain future
Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, “Allegory of the Planets and Continents,” 1752, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This article is part of the Claritas fall 2022 issue, Mystery. Read the full print release here.
By MAX YAP
Should I have done more applications? This question lingered on my mind as I waited for a reply from the 1 (one!) business club I had applied for. I only realised the depths of my folly when I talked with friends who had applied for five, seven, or even ten clubs. Those who were lucky received interview offers from half of the clubs they applied for. Failing to get into even the first round of interviews gave me a spectator seat to a busy September weekend, watching freshmen in navy and grey suits fill their Saturdays with coffee chats and preparing for interviews in Crossings Cafe. As I listened to a friend fret over slide decks and behaviorals, I was struck by the tension and anxiety in so many of my peers. Just why were we doing these applications?
A recent article in the Cornell Sun, “The Club-Catastrophe,” describes the fervour of club application season, the “cutthroat tension” to get into clubs that grant exclusive access to top firms. [1] Looking for security, certainty, and belonging, we throw ourselves into interviews and resumes, taking control of our own journey. I began to see how much of life I approached like this as the semester went on: problem sets, friendships, even what to have for lunch. In most situations, I over-evaluated every angle to act accordingly to find the best solution. In class, we are encouraged to ask academic questions constantly and are equipped with the capacity to answer them. From the birth of stars to the biology of starfish, Cornell gives us scientific and logical tools to uncover new knowledge and eliminate doubt.
By contrast, we are less comfortable with the idea that there may be questions that are unsolved and unsolvable. Questions about what lies ahead of us: What will my job be after I graduate? Who will be my next relationship? What is the purpose of my life?
I love reading because following the thread of a good story is often a welcome balm after searching for coherency and meaning in my own life. One of my favourite books is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, in which the author imagines a world shrouded in mist with magnetism magic and political intrigue. [2] I feel a yearning not only for a world so much more interesting than my own, but for the clear, almost simple challenges that each character faces. Even through every trial, I can see each character’s drive and purpose and how every event shapes their story, even if they do not know it yet. Because the ending is already written, I have a certainty that the author weaves each heartbreak and triumph into a satisfactory end.
Searching for the answers to big, life-altering issues was part of what led me to Christianity and the way that it addressed problems without a clear answer. But even amidst the busyness of college life, in between CS problem sets and late-night parties, I’ve been surprised how many students ask the same questions and grow frustrated being unable to answer them. Talking late at night with a non-Christian friend, our conversation wound its way from French philosophers like Satre and Camus into discussions about morality and life. “What do you think happens when we die?” I asked. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have a clue.”
To me, mystery—a lack of information that we cannot overcome, whose depths are uncertain and vague—is a part of our lives. Mystery is part of our experience of life. We do not often think about it, but our brains only hold a finite amount of knowledge. None of us really knows for sure what will happen tomorrow. Events come at us from unexpected angles; anything from the weather to a worldwide pandemic upends our plans. Even in the calmest of times, life can feel random and disconnected, just a meandering set of events.
The sense of the unknown is something of a looming spectre at Cornell, where our future horizons are blotted by mountains to climb. As students, we are starting to choose courses and careers, where we want to live, who we love, and what we believe. We cannot be sure that the choices we make about our future are good decisions, let alone the right ones. This uncertainty contributes to the anxiety and fear felt by Cornell students; Cornell’s 2020 mental health survey found that 75.5 percent of undergraduates were “moderately” or “very stressed” over concerns about their future. [3]
In the face of mystery, how do Cornell students respond? During my short time here, I would contend two behaviours by which students demonstrate our feelings about our unknown futures. The first is the academic pressure and constant busyness that Cornellians experience. Freshman orientation was my first exposure to this; new students pressed on the importance of “networking” with the clubs that would help you in which fields and how to best ace our interview processes.
Talking with upperclassmen confirmed that the obsessive preparation and stress-induced atmosphere persists beyond college. One junior related how when she got a job interview from Goldman Sachs, a friend remarked that people took weeks off school to prepare for interviews and would do anything for the chance to take a job there.
It’s not new that it is almost an expectation for Cornell students to drown themselves in work. Rather, I hope to highlight that why we work so relentlessly is partly to give us a sense of security and control. Studying can be pursued for its own pleasure, and I’m sure you, like me, know many friends who love what they do. On the other hand, how many more do we know that wring their hands over business fraternities and are elated over their summer internships? As more and more students turn to STEM fields over the humanities, college is a way for us to get a high-paying job and have at least some say in what our future life looks like. [4]
On the other hand, I imagine there are readers who would argue that the unknown future isn’t really a cause of concern for them or their friends. Who knows what's going to happen anyway? Why waste breath on it? During my first time at a frat party early in the semester, I could see how appealing this approach was. With the strobe lighting, free-flowing drinks, and sweltering air pressing on my skin, the packed basement seemed like a tiny self-contained world. All of the sensations made time seem to flow by—it was almost easy to ignore what was going on outside or even what I had to do tomorrow.
I think most students at Cornell have had both these attitudes at one time or another. We want to plan out our future and be in control while sometimes being able to ignore it entirely. Christians are in no way exempt from the same anxiety and fear as they face the future. In Ecclesiastes 3:21-22, the writer laments “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward…Who can bring him to see what will be after him?” [5]
Yet there is a Christian response to uncertainty about the future that I think doesn’t put it all in our hands or lead us to ignore it entirely. When we consider a future outside our ability to understand it, our attitude can begin grounded in a belief in a sovereign God. Christians believe not in a creator who made the universe and left it to run on its own, but in an actively intervening God. Rather than a watchmaker, He is like a father who gives life to a child and then raises it to grow, or a caretaker who plants seeds in a garden and waters them to flourishing. God’s sovereignty encompasses His control over the future, His movement in our world and His love for us. The most striking evidence of His sovereignty is how God the ruler came to earth, took the form of a Jewish carpenter, washed the feet of others and died a criminal’s death to redeem us from sin. 2 Timothy 1:9 says that God was the one “who saved us and called us to a holy calling… which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” [6] Even when many things about our future are unknown, we can know that God was planning our ultimate end from before the beginning of history.
It is His character as a God who is in control of all things that allows Christians to trust God over what happens in the future. But isn’t this faith in an unseen, seemingly silent God just another version of ignoring the future, throwing our hands up in the air and blindly trusting things will work out? Not at all! In his letter to the Romans, Paul, the primary author of the New Testament, argues “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” [7] Our faith is in an unseen person, but not in an unknown one.
The Bible is not just a theology or a history but an anthology of the many stories of God, working in the lives of ordinary people. One of my favorites is Naomi, a elderly woman who loses her husband and sons, without any hope of a family to carry on her legacy or to support her in her old age. She is left without a shred of security and is so moved that she asks to be renamed “Mara,” which is Hebrew for “bitter.” [8] Yet God is at work in her story, giving her a grandchild through her daughter-in-law, Ruth, and bringing a new family to her. All across the Bible, we see God active in the lives of His people, working for their good even when they cannot see it.
Even when it seems God fails, we can still be called to put our trust in Him. In Mistborn, the main character Vin talks with Sazed, a steward in charge of keeping her safe. As their plans seem to go awry, he counsels her with this:
“Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief—what is faith—if you don't continue in it after failure?”
We can draw on the consistency of God’s character, evidenced by what He has done in the past and knowing He will do the same in the future.
It is out of this place of security we can form an attitude that helps us deal with the vast mystery of what will happen to us. We can begin by fully accepting that we are limited, frail beings. For example, I love listening to rap music when I work out, but sometimes I think of the exquisite lies we tell ourselves to pump us up; we’re a god, we’re a beast, we’re invincible. I think about the line from Juice WRLD’s “Come and Go” where he says: “I try to be everything that I can / But sometimes I come out as bein' nothin' ”. [9] At the end of the day, we are unable to fully control our future but we can trust that there is someone who can. We don’t just have to rely on our inner strength, but can fully lean on and trust God to know what job we will work on and who we will meet in the future.
We can also cast off our anxiety and recognise it for the unproductive and damaging emotion that it is. Matthew 6:27-19 Jesus says,
“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you…?” [10]
Worrying and fretting does little to help us, only adds to our burden of stress, and can actively hamper our ability to plan for the future. We can rest easy that just as God beautifies birds and flowers, He infinitely more cares about our wellbeing and health. Our job is to reflect this love to those around us, leaving everything else in the hands of a loving God.
Practically, we can emphasize rest over productivity. We don’t need to constantly work; instead, we are led to take an entire day out of the week just to rest, a practice commonly referred to as Sabbath. The point is not only to recover mentally and physically to just do more work. Resting recognises that our worth does not come solely from our productivity, and that our work should not consume our entire lives. In solitude and quiet, we draw near to the truth, that the world happily goes on without our small, powerless lives in it. We come to remember that God is in ultimate control and what He has done for us. In our work itself, we can continue to strive to do our best, but work from a place of security rather than hunger. We can submit our work to God and ask that He be in control, while still giving all that we have in this life to cultivating our gifts both academically and non-academically.
While life at Cornell continues to throw challenges in my way, I hope that I can grow in this rest and confidence. Next semester, I’m still planning on applying for a raft of business clubs and preparing as best as I can for every technical question. But I hope that I’ll sit down at interviews with confidence, not anxiety, not because of what I have done, but because I know who is doing things for me.
This article appeared in Claritas’ fall 2022 Mystery Issue.
Sources
[1] Choung, Adin, and Pallavi Kenkare. 2022. “CHOUNG | The Club-tastrophe.” The Cornell Daily Sun, October 6, 2022. https://cornellsun.com/2022/10/06/choung-the-club-tastrophe/.
[2] Sanderson, Brandon. 2006. Mistborn: The Final Empire. N.p.: Tor Publishing Group.
[3] https://health.cornell.edu/initiatives/skorton-center/mental-health-initiatives/fall-2020-mental-health-well-being-survey#:~:text=Findings%3A%20Students%20reported%20experiencing%20higher,navigating%20considerable%20current%20societal%20stressors.
[4] Barshay, Jill. 2021. “PROOF POINTS: The number of college graduates in the humanities drops for the eighth consecutive year.” The Hechinger Report, November 22, 2021. https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-the-number-of-college-graduates-in-the-humanities-drops-for-the-eighth-consecutive-year/.
[5] Ecclesiastes 3:21-22 NIV
[6] 2 Timothy 1:9 ESV
[7] Romans 8:24 NIV
[8] Ruth 1:19-21 ESV
[9] Silvera, Rodrigo. 2020. “Juice WRLD & Marshmello – Come & Go Lyrics.” Genius, July 9, 2020. https://genius.com/Juice-wrld-and-marshmello-come-and-go-lyrics.
[10] Matthew 6: 27-29 ESV