Some folks seem to live under a cloud. Others seem to reside permanently in the sunshine. Whilst trouble follows some, never ending pleasure is the abode of others. Aside from the blessing (or curse) of simply being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and enough money to buy your every desire, there are other reasons that we can experience remarkably different lives from those around us.
Decisions have a lot to do with what happens to us. Yeah, sure, the good decisions. But also the terrible ones. And the ones others have made for us — in particular our parents.
I’m not about blaming other people for our problems but in the same way others affect us, we in turn affect the generation and generations to come.
No human in history has been responsible for their own genetic makeup. We are who we are in large part because of the genetic makeup of our parents. So there’s that. Some part of what happens to us is the result of inherited traits. Some years ago when I was first diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy one of the first things the doctor wanted to do was genetic testing to determine whether or how much of my problem may have been caused by genetics. Similarly, cancers can be an inherited tendency, eyesight issues, and right down the line from influences that show up as infants all the way down the line to things like Alzheimers which may not appear until age grabs hold and refuses to let go.
So much for “beyond our control”.
There are also impacts that happen because of our parents poor choices. The drunken binge that ends up with bedding the wrong someone who either gets pregnant or causes you to get pregnant. Will parenthood be acknowledged? Will support be given. Was the experience pleasant, or was it rape? Do the parents spend any time together and if they do is it time that is god for the child?
Choices about education, about where to live, about how serious one takes their job(s), their relationships…. all these can be great choices and lifestyles, or they can be miserable choices and catastrophic lifestyles. And none of these things are within our power to alter — they happened TO us and like it or not we need to find a way to deal with the aftermath — because WE are the aftermath.
I don’t mean this as a “debbie downer” post. But the fact is that a great deal happens to us that has nothing to do with us. I was eligible for the draft during Vietnam. How I felt about the war made no difference in whether I had an obligation to the government simply by virtue of my age. People today in Palestine may have had nothing to do with Hamas yet they are suffering terribly because of both the inhumanity of Hamas and the inhumanity of Israel. They are stuck, as are refugees and displaced persons around the world from conflict after conflict after conflict — for centuries and centuries and millennia.
In spite of all the negativity it’s still within our power to overcome. Still within our power to want better and seek better and achieve better. You don’t have to be born rich to find, or achieve success and happiness, but it helps of you make good decisions along the way, and if you take the bad circumstances that you find yourself in and work to change them into better circumstances. Maybe life won’t be wonderful, but we can always make it better. And in real life some of the most wonderful, caring people I have ever known have been among the poorest and most humble as well.
Achieving a life you can be proud of isn’t about what happened TO you, it’s about what you choose to do in your own time and with your own two hands. It’s about accepting what is, and working to make it better.
I guess that’s it for today. I hope you’re keeping well and I’ll talk with you tomorrow.
From the Far Side of '70 
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