Life Happens

Why can’t life be more organized? I make plans, try to account for things that could go wrong, build in contingencies and “fudge factors” for all the things that could happen that I didn’t know, and that I didn’t know I didn’t know, and yet at the end of the day/month/year/life it still turns out as Robert Burns wrote (supposedly after unintentionally ploughing up a nest of mice in his field):

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Loosely, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. The second part about getting pain when you’re hoping for joy may sound a bit pessimistic, but we don’t generally plan for – as in WANT to achieve – grief and pain, so when our plans are thwarted, where else would we be? Sometimes things work out the way we plan it, but, by and large, we are left scrambling to turn things around to where we think they should be.

Let’s face it, life isn’t an efficiency program. How often have you thought that it would run more smoothly if things worked differently? Life isn’t fair (how many times do we have to listen to that complaint?) – no matter how hard you try, you can’t force fairness, any more than you can change the weather.

Life is what it is – it’s not what you want it to be.

I believe life is a never-ending class in which tests are thrown at you (mostly unscheduled pop-tests), and our task is to make the best of the situation and learn from it. We’re supposed to GROW and EVOLVE.

How do we learn best? Total emersion works for languages. The Marines and other military organizations have their own forms of total emersion. That’s what LIFE is – most of the time, YOU REALLY DON’T GET TO TAKE A BREAK FROM LIVING (and what would that be called, exactly?)

Despite what you’ve heard, life isn’t the game where HE WHO HAS THE MOST TOYS WINS. The material goods are a sideshow; what happens inside of you by the end is what truly matters. It’s up to each of us to make the best of our days before we move on.

Just saying…

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William Mangieri’s writing (including his latest ePublication “Dead End Jobs”) can be found in many places, such as:

• His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
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