Life'sTOUGH

There’s no getting around it: LIFE’S TOUGH … perhaps excepting for a lucky few who have had the good fortune to benefit from the grit and grind of others – but, even then, it’s often only temporary. 

The bliss and ecstasy of marrying someone, who, we fully expect, will selflessly look after our personal welfare for the entire remainder of our lives, generally ends after a honeymoon of two weeks to seven years and concludes in divorce approximately 40% of the time.   

And the mundane realities of everyday life not only don’t disappear, they can become more burdensome: 

• ·         Allowances disappear
• ·         “Discretionary” income disappears
• ·         Bills have to be paid
• ·         Jobs have to be acquired
• ·         Money has to be earned
• ·         Promotions have to be attained
• ·         Unconditional Love becomes increasingly “Conditional”
• ·         Respect has to be earned
• ·         Relationships have to be cultivated
• ·         Children, pets, careers and other dependents have to be tended
• ·         Indiscretions have to be accounted for
• ·         Misfortunes abound
• ·         Taxes have to be paid
• ·         Debts have to be covered
• ·         Equity has to grow
• ·         Savings and investments need to expand
• ·         NOTE: “Super Powers” exist only in figments and fantasies
• ·         Health and wellbeing become more challenging with time
• ·         Excuses and explanations become less tenable
• ·         Delayed Ramification becomes increasingly expensive
• ·         “Discretionary Time” disappears
• ·         Defiance of Authority carries increasing consequences
• ·         Defiance of REALITY carries increasing consequences
• ·         Opportunities disappear
• ·         “Eventualities” don’t disappear
• ·         Dreams untended become less and less attainable
• ·         Things you “couldn’t live without” become millstones

 And all that stuff you were going to do “some day” eventually has to be done – IF it still CAN be ... with added “interest” to be paid. 

And the list goes on …

People fail … Teams lose … Disappointments materialize … Regret is only a missed deadline away … Depression is hiding behind every misstep and lost opportunity … People get “passed over” for promotions … Companies downsize … Technology and skills need to be UPGRADED  … Inflation happens … Plumbing gives out … Roofs leak … Weeds grow … Politics gets ugly … Ants, termites and bed bugs invade … and the Competition has nothing better to do than be better than we are. 

 So.  Now.  Who’s up for going on a shopping spree, playing video games, doing some social media, binge-watching Star Wars, surfing the web, or going out for banana splits? 

Whatever happened to Carpe Diem!?!

“Let me repeat, things that go downward will run themselves [downward, of course].  Things that go upward have to be pushed.  Going upward is overcoming.  Notice that churches, schools, businesses – things that go upward – never run themselves.  They must be pushed all the time.  And so it is with our lives.  Real living is the conscious effort to go upward to larger life.  If you are making no effort in your life, if you are moving in the line of least resistance, depend upon it … you are going downward.  Look out for the bumps!”  Ralph Parlette in “The University of Hard Knocks” (Brownlow, Inc., p. 17)

So, to get the very BEST out of life, it’s either PUSH or BE PUSHED!  … which seems unconscionably strident, stringent, severe and completely beyond reasonability. 

And so it is for the uber-unsung … the underachievers … the lost … the foundering … the ne’er-do-wells … the self-victimized …

But there’s an interesting revelation to be discovered here:  All of the above is simply a GIVEN.  It’s not nefariously superimposed on an otherwise completely fabricated idyllic existence.  It’s just the way things ARE! 

All we have to do is accept the way things are, run with them – not against them, and we’re suddenly in the game for BETTER rather than for WORSE! 

It’s all in the expectations and strategic choices.  If we expect life to be a bowl of cherries and find out it’s really a bowl of dirt, we can either eat dirt or plant cherry seeds.  [http://lifemasterymusings.blogspot.com/2016/02/bowl-of-dirt-parable.html]

Don’t be surprised if you don’t bat 0.400.  Keep swinging!

ad impossibile nemo tenetur

[“nobody is held to the impossible”] 

We simply need to stop making it even MORE impossible with unfounded assumptions and unrealistic expectations, defiance of authority, defiance of reality and all the rest!  Run with what life gives you, keep swinging and planting cherry seeds, and you will be amazed what you can do and become!  Truth is, you’re just as TOUGH as life.  Let’s hike up our shorts, put on our “By God Armorall Vests”, eat a frog or two, and see if we can hit one out of the park before the day’s over!  Quartermaster