What Does the Future Hold? | By Steven W. Alloway

In my capacity as a part-time time traveler, people will sometimes ask me, “What does the future hold?” Particularly standing, as we currently are, on the precipice of a new year, it’s a question we would all like some answers to.

Unfortunately, time traveling shenanigans aside, I do not actually know the future. Truth be told, obsessed as I am with time travel, I still would not actually want to know what’s going to happen in 2026, or any subsequent year of my own life. It’s the same reason why I don’t want you to start explaining to me the plot of the movie we’re sitting down to watch. I’m just about to experience it for myself. I’d much rather experience it the way it was designed to be experienced, than spend all my time anticipating and obsessing over all the little details that I know are coming.

Even so, though, as we say goodbye to the old year, we’re all probably at least a little curious as to how the new year will turn out. At the very least, we have an idea of where we’d like the year to go, and we set goals and make resolutions to try to guide ourselves down that path. Even if we don’t want full spoilers, it’s tempting to want at least a glimpse of that path, to see how close we stick to it.

So with that in mind, I’m going to tell you what’s in store for 2026. Are you ready? Here we go.

What’s In Store for 2026

It’s going to contain incredible joy. And it’s going to contain incredible heartbreak. There will be great victories. And there will be crushing defeats. There will be days when you’re on top of the world, and there will be days when you’re sure you’ll never reach your goals. You’ll take great strides forward, great leaps into the unknown, but you’ll also have some major setbacks and wonder if any of it is worth the effort.

You’ll meet incredible new people. And you’ll lose some of the people you’re close to. You’ll embark on some great new projects. Some of them you’ll accomplish, and some of them you won’t. You’re going to experience happiness, sadness, excitement, terror, anger, peace, and everything in between. In short, it will be… A year.

I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m not speaking here as a part-time time traveler, but rather as a fulltime human being. I don’t have a window into the coming year, but I’ve experienced enough previous ones to have a basic idea of how they go. I’m sure most of you do, too. 

The question is, though, which will win out in the end? The joy or the sorrow? The victories or the losses? When I give my answer as a time traveler, I typically quote Doc Brown, in Back to the Future III: “The future is whatever you make it! So make it a good one!” It’s a great sentiment and not entirely without merit. But the reality is more complicated than that.

Curveballs

On January 1st, 2021, I made a Facebook post: “Our Facebook Memories are going to be wild for the next three months. Starting with posts about our goals for the coming year, and cries of, ‘Bring it on, 2020!’ Posts about things we’re doing and places we’re going, giving way to things we’re going to do: the shows and projects we started to embark on, which were meant to come to fruition in March and April. Followed by posts laughing off the sudden, spreading panic, and saying things like, ‘We’re all going to feel pretty silly when this turns out to be nothing.’ Then the sharing of silly memes about how to wash our hands properly. Culminating at the end of March with the post: ‘I can’t believe we have to stay home for two whole weeks!’”

2020 is, of course, the most striking example, but I’ve actually found it quite common that my Facebook Memories will serve as a reminder of how quickly life can change. The day my dad died, a friend tagged me, along with about 30 other friends, in a post thanking us for coming to his show over the weekend. There’s a post from 2010 about how excited I was to dive into a new project—a day before I spent a week in the hospital with appendicitis. There are photos of friends and loved ones that I had no idea would be our last photo together. And a hundred other things that take on entirely new significance when viewed in retrospect.

Yes, to a certain extent, the future is whatever you make it. But sometimes, life throws us curveballs. In the blink of an eye, your plans are completely derailed, and “shaping your own destiny” becomes a matter of getting onto whatever new track you can find—or even navigating without one for a while. But whatever you do, your life is going to change, perhaps drastically, through no fault of your own.

Unexpected Opportunities

Not all of the sudden changes life throws us are bad. Sometimes, what changes your life is an amazing new opportunity. Facebook Memories can be a great reminder of those, too. In January of 2012, a friend from college, whom I hadn’t seen in years, posted on my wall: “Hey, I’m working on a show, and I think you should audition!”

I don’t remember what I had planned for 2012, but after that audition, my plans shifted dramatically. Not just because I was unexpectedly in a show. But because that show then led to another show and another show, to new friends, new opportunities, new communities… Not just in 2012, but for years afterwards. And eventually, it led me to Epiphany Space, too. I don’t know what my life would be like without that one audition or that one Facebook post inviting me, but it would be completely unrecognizable when compared with my life today.

But when it comes to Facebook’s reminders of amazing life changes, nothing beats the Friendiversary. This was the day I met someone who’s now an integral part of my life. I barely knew them at the time, but now, the things we’ve been through, the adventures we’ve been on… Just by going on the journey with me, they’ve managed to change the path in ways I never could have hoped or imagined.

The Future’s Up to You?

“The future is whatever you make it” is a nice sentiment, but there are also some problems with it. It’s true that you never know when your life is about to change unexpectedly, and a large part of life is about recognizing those opportunities and adapting to those curveballs, to make the best of whatever situation you find yourself in. In that respect, your future is in your own hands.

But when you boil it down to those simple terms, it can make it seem like, if you’re NOT doing well, if you’re not accomplishing much, or if you’re struggling just to stay afloat, that it’s, at least to some degree, your own fault. The future is whatever you make it! So if it’s not good, it’s because you didn’t make it good! You didn’t jump quickly enough at those opportunities! You didn’t adapt hard enough to those curveballs! You had the opportunity to make a great year! And you failed!

That is a load of dingo’s kidneys. We all do the best we can, and in spite of it, sometimes we’ll still have bad years—years we’re glad to be rid of and wish we could just forget. Even when you make the best of a bad situation, it’s still a bad situation. Sometimes “making the best” can mean making things actually good, but sometimes, it’s all you can do just to keep them from getting even worse.

Like 2020. We all “made the best of it” in our own ways, with our sourdough starters and our Zoom-based theater productions, but any way you slice it, it was still a terrible year. And there was nothing any of us could have done to make it a good one.

Or even aside from the Pandemic… For me, 2015 and 2023 were two of the worst years of my adult life, plagued with tragedy and loss. I’m sure you’ve had years like that too: years where, no matter how hard you try to “make the best of it,” all you can hope for is just to survive to the next year. It’s easy to get discouraged during times like this, but you need to remember that it’s not your fault. You haven’t failed. You’re just facing some curveballs and dealing with them as best you can.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times…

I suppose that’s not a particularly hopeful sentiment for the new year. But on the other hand… You did, in fact, survive! Because here you are! And you’ve had some great times since then, and probably some pretty good years!

Which brings us back to what I said at the beginning. Yes, things will be bad sometimes. But they’ll also be amazing. Even the best years have some tragedy, and even the worse years have some joy. In 2015, I made some incredible friends, and I got to play one of my dream roles on stage, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2023, I spent the summer in Paso Robles and got to see Hearst Castle. Even in the darkest times, there’s always something great too, if you look carefully enough.

I really hope that 2026 is an amazing year for you. I hope you accomplish fantastic things, meet and connect with incredible people, and find opportunities that will change your life forever. But even if things don’t turn out that way, don’t ever lose hope. Focus on the joy whenever you can, and remember, when things seem bleak, that there are still incredible things on the horizon.

What does the future hold? I don’t know. But I’m excited for us to find out, together.