Usually when people wake up in the morning and have their tea, they plan their day and think about what is going to come ahead and wonder if it will actually turn out as well as they have planned it to. But I am not one of those ordinary people you come across everyday! I open my eyes every morning knowing unerringly what is in store for me and precisely how my day would turn out to be. I have this amazing ability to see what is going to happen before it does. I can see the future and I now think of it as a gift but it was not always like this. When I first had a vision about 4 years ago at the tender age of 12, I did not even know what to make of it. At first I ignored it but when I began to have visions about the future more and more often I just felt terrified of what was happening. My mind was cluttered with questions which needed to be answered. Why did I see things which had not taken place yet? Was I unique in having visions like these? Should I tell someone about it? Why am I the one who is seeing them? Does all of this actually have a higher purpose?

At first the visions that I would have would be very vague but with the passage of time they became more and more clear and easy for me to decipher. I learned to make better use of them and attained a solid command over them. I now controlled when and what I wanted to foresee, instead of them controlling me and making me think I was going insane. I know most of you would give just about anything to have my ability but it is not as auspicious as it sounds. How do you like it when you watch a TV show and then watch the re-run? Do not like it? My feelings about it are quite the same, when I go through the rest of my day knowing how it will pass; it is like living every moment twice.

I suppose the element of surprise is very much missing in my life, and that is one thing that adds thrill in people's lives and gets them stirred up, jumpy or frantic. Would you not rather go through your life without knowing what is coming and accepting all the problems and challenges that you face and living through the hurdles life throws at you than know what you would be up against next. I know many of you might not agree but as they say, "ignorance is bliss".
And I can tell you they were not wrong.

At times it is better to have the fear of the unknown in your mind and not be certain about what is going to happen and yet proceed through the rest of the day just to find out how it would end, and in the process have your fingers crossed and hope for the best.

When I predict the future to someone and warn them about a danger they would get in, they start thinking of me as a mentally derailed person but when it comes true they become dumbfounded with the prospect that they were told in advance of the occurrence and feel aghast of me and wonder how in the world could I possibly have known, especially when it is people I have just met for the first time.

Telling someone that they have an ill fate awaiting them is not exactly a way to show your sagacious state of mind. I do not know why or how I get these premonitions but it is very natural for me now and I am getting more and more accustomed to them. Not being able to predict what the future holds would be a completely alien concept for me now and I am certain that it would feel as if an important part of me is missing. A sense of insecurity would develop in me as my dependence on the prescience has grown stronger overtime.

Though there was a time when I would wish for them to cease but now I’m grateful of the gift that I have. Not many people know that I am capable of something this gargantuan in its implications. And I want to keep it that way. The only two people that I have let in on this secret of mine are my mother and my best friend, Kimberley. I know I can trust both of them with my life and my secret is no less. I do not want anyone to know about it and neither do I think that they would be able to comprehend what that actually is. Besides, just handing out predictions is not exactly a prudent course of action.

Most people would be incredulous at best. Some may even deem it unholy, satanic or even blasphemous as only God could know the future. And I know for fact that there are also people who would want to misuse this ability for ill purposes. To be impartial, I could not blame them, who would not want to make a neat fortune for themselves using this ability? You could bet on horse races and know which one would win, buy lottery tickets and know what would be the winning numbers or even take on the Stock Exchange and make a few million.

Sounds a bit congenial, does it not? But that is not how I would want to use it, though it does feel very satisfying to know a little something about the future. For instance, what you will get for your birthday a fortnight off, when there will be a surprise quiz and what questions will be asked in your final exams!

Maybe I might be able to change things for the better and who knows? I may even one day save countless lives by having the foresight to predict terrible catastrophes, some natural and some decidedly less so. Though my 6th sense could also have disastrous effects on the future such as provoking pre-emptive wars by predicting future acts of aggression… unwarranted or not. In my young and impressionable mind is information that could unwittingly spark World War III.

I have accepted that this is part of who I am and I could no longer spend anymore of my time fighting it. But at the same time, I am just a normal school girl and so I will continue to live my life with the courage, commitment, subterfuge and the strong will that is required of me. And these are the things which make me who I am and might help to make me who I want to become. As Nelson Mandela has said, “After climbing a great mountain, one only finds that there are many more mountains left to climb,” and I believe that. I am still in my golden years and have a long life that awaits me. Many more fateful moments to come, many a stranger to befriend and a whole world left to scout. And if I play my cards right, I may just get past the bumps along the way.