I’ve been an English teacher for over seven years now. Spending all day teaching classes, and dealing with the best and worst of students, has been an adventure and played a central role in my growth. I want to share a specific teaching experience that led to a powerful existential realisation, changing my understanding of the human condition. It happened on the day I traveled through time.

Most of my teaching years have been at a single school. I taught for around three years, took an eighteen-month break, and then rejoined the same school with new classes. When I returned, many of my old students had left. Some now came in on different days due to scheduling changes. The ones I did see again were noticeably older, but not enough time had passed to make a significant difference.

That changed recently, two years on, when I subbed a private lesson with one of my old students. She was around eight or nine when I first taught her and is now fifteen. Those years fly by for us adults, but it’s a long time for the kids and comes with dramatic changes. When I met this student again, she had transformed from a little kid with only a basic English ability to an older teenager with near-fluent conversation skills. It was a surreal experience. I felt like time had lost its chronology and I’d been unknowingly thrust into the future. I was the same person, but she wasn’t. There was a disconnect between my idea of the student and the reality of who she was now.

This encounter got me thinking about the nature of change and how it happens despite us. It’s easy to become wrapped up in our circumstances and our mental models of the world. My representation of this student was still the ten-year-old girl. Teaching her again shattered that illusion. It humbled me. It opened my eyes to how the tendency to become consumed by one’s own story could be deceptive.

Of course, we realise that life goes on outside our limited vantage point. Yet, we tend to ignore it until the reality confronts us head-on. We become hypnotized by our bubble of experience, assuming everything is wrapped up within it. In truth, reality is always unfolding and shifting without our consent. It builds on what came before, taking new forms behind our backs, which then appear foreign.

The main insight was a profound lack of control. Holding onto the past, or trying to direct the future is futile. The universe has its own agenda. One that unfolds before we can even grasp the significance of what’s taking place. We demand reality to remain within the limits of our perception. We want the world to stay true to our sense of identity. Unforeseen shifts are scary. They’re threatening. But this is nature, and we need to accept the thundering currents of life are both intelligent and unstoppable. They will wash away our sense of importance without so much as a squeak of resistance.

This is exactly what happened to me. I was blindsided by a creative power far greater than myself. Reality had shifted without my approval or participation. This is not a bad thing, though it did make me feel insignificant, challenging the auto-pilot significance that usually runs my life.

The radical possibilities of change over time are both beautiful and scary. The lack of agency any one of us has in the direction the universe takes is humbling, but it’s not the end of the story. This experience with my old student also provided me with a secondary insight. One that counteracts the first and changes the way I view my role in life.

I realised the time I spent teaching this girl in the past had influenced the person she is today. Her current level of English was in part due to the effort and intention I put into those classes years ago. And it wasn’t only her English ability. Her entire life trajectory had changed. I may have only played a tiny role in her life story, but the butterfly effect had taken course and shaped this future I was experiencing. I had created it.

The universe may always linger beyond our grasp, but we’re also within it. We’re part of it. We are it.

How you decide to show up today has direct implications for the future. For yourself, yes, but also for the whole. And with this in mind, we have to acknowledge that we’re not helpless victims. Within each decision exists a spark of control. Events evolve based on the choices we make today. Sure, we can’t stop the currents of life, but by placing ourselves in their way, we can divert their course.

Where does this new awareness lead?

For me, it’s a greater respect for the present. It’s easy to lose ourselves in the clouding haze of our personal story. We’re so obsessive about the past and the future that we overlook our creative influence in the present. We blind ourselves to the transformative effects dispersing from even insignificant actions. In the moment, we don’t see how much difference we can make because we’re too close. All it takes is a step back, or a flash forward in my case, and suddenly the lines of destiny reveal themselves. We glance down and are amazed to discover that they pass right on through us, changing frequency based on who we are and what we do.

It’s at this inflection point that life’s meaning finds root. If we live each day knowing what we do impacts the shape of the future, our choices suddenly have weight. The way we approach each encounter has far-reaching consequences. Each person will make a difference, whether they know it or not. But to know it is to understand the true meaning of responsibility. The responsibility passed down by the universe.

In the end, it seems the times are changing both because of us and beyond us. When I left the classroom that evening, it felt like the two weren’t all that different. I said goodbye to my former student and told her she had done well. Then I walked to the busy metro station to head home. While I waited for my train, I sat on a bench and watched humanity pass. All I could see were fixed eyes and minds drifting back. How many of them knew they were travelling through time? I wondered. And how many realised they were choosing the destination with every step?

Ben Worrall