English contains three moods: 1) the indicative (factual) 2) the imperative (commands) and 3) the subjunctive (non-factual).

The indicative mood states “I am writing a book.”  The imperative directs “Please write a compelling book.” The subjunctive envisions “I might write a book about elves.”

Vietnamese does not possess the subjunctive mood, only the fact of what is or what was. A language with no words for regret or what ifs from the past may sound good at first . . . but without the subjunctive mood, we would also lack the words to imagine what could be or what should be in the future.

Living in the past will not make us more resilient, but reflecting on the past–what might have been or what should have been–comes along with the ability to ponder what could be or what will  be in the future.

If we want to discover how the world could be different or better tomorrow, we must include the stories of our past experiences. In To Be Told, Dan Allender describes how to read your life as God has written it and challenges you to begin forging perspective by learning a better way to read your “tragedies”.

He says that our past was given, was written for us by the “odd hand of God” before we were born (Psalm 139:16); yet mysteriously, my future is yet unnamed and “I am frighteningly free to write as I desire because God has written me to be fully responsible for my story.”

[This post was inspired after hearing the Ted Talk “Grammar, Identity and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” during the reading of To Be Told.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS516US516&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ted%20talk%20the%20subjunctive]