Building Huts Instead of Towers: Planning for Uncertainty
A reflection and looking forward
2021
Putting down my exact thoughts to paper is ... a never-ending challenge. It seems like every week, I am faced with new challenges. My end needs weighed against my current needs. Can I sacrifice a current need for a future need, when some great catastrophe may harm my future need?
Is planning for the future even worth that, when the future is so uncertain?
At the same time, is gaining current needs better, because it offers no real solution to the problem, just a temporary point of breath.
2025
There's a special kind of perspective that looking back at writing done from the COVID-19 pandemic gives when faced with a new challenge in 2025. Reading this crying, raging anger at sacrifices I had to make to get right here, where I am now nearly five years later, I'm faced with two things.
Not a lot has changed.
Everything has changed.
At the time, being away from my family and the horrible, near debilitating situational depression was my main goal in life. I thought everything would be fixed if I could just get away.
And in a very real way, I was right. A lot of things have improved and I am able to better grasp the joy in life. But at the same time, reading my anger then at the circular nature of only aiming for the future was a mirror image of the frustration I feel in 2025.
As a queer, disabled person, I am in a better place away from my family and away from the States at large. But I also reside within a state of uncertainty much like then. I constantly feel that any movement I make now is a way to build safe spaces in the future and not as sure how to do so in the present.
The actions I took in 2021 were creating the better position for myself at this moment, but it feels as scary as it was then to accept that uncertainty is part of the process.
It's been a journey of the last couple months of trying to build safe spaces in the present as well. To sacrifice some of those supposed golden towers in some distant future for a sturdy hut right now, because something has to keep the rain of stress and sadness off in the present.
The other scrap of writing from 2021 told me a different story though.
2021
Why do I have to choose between my health and food? Why do I have to choose between my job and food? Why do I have to choose between my budget and food?
Why do I have to sacrifice what I can eat for the fact that my family refuses to isolate?
I have to order expensive take out because they refuse to stay out of the kitchen. They come up to me and cough in my room. I am trying to protect the job that I have, where I cannot make up extra time and where I have no sick-leave. I am trying to make it with the food I can steal from downstairs and take up to my room, because they will not stay out of the kitchen. It's infuriating that I have to spend money, which I have anxiety over saving, when they are completely ignorant and blind to the fact that I cannot get sick.
They disgust me.
Wish I could just go downstairs and fix a can of beans. I just want a can of beans. That's all. Just a simple can of beans.
2025
Time smoothed out these memories. They still hurt. They still sting. The fact that my family contracted COVID and often other illnesses as well without a particular care for anyone around them, including their own children who (unknown to them) was fighting tooth and nail to escape them.
That hurt.
But I think the take away I had was the situation wasn't permanent. It sucked, but I made it through. 2021 was the worst year for me. Because everything I cared about and thought I was crumbled around me. But I had hope and I got up again and I kept at it until I made something new and wonderful with the pieces.
People like to say 'it was meant to be' - which is a really trashy way of excusing terrible things. But that doesn't mean I didn't end up with something good.
The goal now is to just make better safe spaces for me right now. To weather the latest storm better than the last one. To shore of my present with my future.
And maybe things will be better in the future because of what I do right now.
About the Creator
Minte Stara
Small writer and artist who spends a lot of their time stuck in books, the past, and probably a library.
Currently I'm working on my debut novel What's Normal Here, a historical/fantasy romance.
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When I was 17, I met a man who delivered newspapers in the rain. Not in a casual, half-hearted way—but fully committed, every single morning. He would leave his house before sunrise, his coat soaked, shoes falling apart, and the wind cutting through him like a knife. Yet, despite the cold and wet, he smiled at everyone on his route. To a teenager like me, it was both confusing and inspiring. I remember the first time I saw him struggle with a bundle of papers that seemed almost too heavy for him. He slipped on the wet pavement, muttered something under his breath, and kept walking. When he reached the next house, he knocked on the door, handed over the paper, and smiled as the door closed. That smile was strange to me—it wasn’t pride or satisfaction, it was… calm. Almost peaceful. Curious, I approached him one morning. “Why don’t you take a day off when it’s so hard?” I asked, shivering in my hoodie as the rain soaked me through. 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Just like the man in the rain, your efforts may not be recognized immediately. People may overlook them, circumstances may feel unfair, progress may seem invisible. But over time, the cumulative effect of your daily effort will speak for itself. One day, the world will notice. One day, your consistency will transform your life. So, start today. Don’t wait for motivation. Don’t wait for inspiration. Show up. Every day. One small effort. One action. One step at a time. Let your grind be louder than your excuses. Because the man who never missed a day wasn’t special. He was ordinary. But through persistence, he became unstoppable. And so can you.
By Ihtisham Ulhaqabout 17 hours ago in Motivation
Comments (1)
This makes me think about my own journey. I've often had to weigh current and future needs. Like you, I've faced uncertainty. It's tough to decide what to sacrifice. How did you find the courage to take those steps in 2021? And how are you building safe spaces now? It's a constant process, isn't it?