Failure

I wrote this back in 2003, just before my father-in-law died suddenly and my appendix burst and I was very sick for 5 months. I just "re-found" it :-) and still find it true.

"It's not easy being green." Why does it take a philosopher frog puppet to point this out to us?

We make plans but they go awry. Sometimes things happen in ways better than we imagine and sometimes worse. If good things happen; we get the promotion sooner, lose the weight faster, a bonus or babysitter shows up when we weren't expecting it; we easily fit these things into our plans. But if we work hard on the presentation, study for the test, make the effort and what we were hoping for doesn’t come about, we feel cheated and say Life is unfair.

What is worse is when we expect Life to be fair and give us some of the breaks; whether or not we have a plan, apply ourselves, work hard.

Two weeks ago I made the good intention, set the goal, to lose two pounds a week for the next year. I thought about and work out a plan and it too is good. Each week I work to lose two pounds. No individual week's two pounds is related to any other week's two pounds. What I do this week may or may not be related to what I did last week or what I'll do next week to lose the two pounds. In addition, on Saturday of each week I write an essay like this, about something I've learned while working on losing my two pounds that week. I believe the Titanic was constructed kind of like my weight loss plan; lots of individual air-tight compartments so it would be impossible to sink it?

I lost three pounds last week. Every Sunday, on Sunday only, I get on the scale and see if I've lost my two pounds for the week. I'm not hopeful for tomorrow.

It's fine to decide one week is not related to another but Life doesn't work that way. Life is a seamless whole. It is humans that have decided Saturday ends a week and Sunday starts another. It is me who is already worrying about tomorrow before it's here, another human trait. What to do, what to do.

I intellectually planned for plateaus and even weight gains. I intellectually decided not to be bothered by either but, instead, to look at the bigger picture. I reminded myself "it's not easy being green" but I left out the heart of the matter, the "being" part. It's the experience that's not easy, not the thinking about it. And experience only happens moment-to-moment. Right now is the only experience we ever have.

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?
Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine,
it's beautiful!

And I think it's what I want to be.

Perna,
Wow, you sound like a philosopher! I'm glad you wrote it and thanks for sharing it.

You are so right. Life is not fair.

As far as making plans, it takes follow-through.

I've heard it said that successful people are the ones willing to do the work that nobody else will do. How true.

Thanks for the reminder.
Best,
Okie

Just had to insert one of my favorite sayings:

Life's not fair

But it IS fair

Cuz it's not fair

To everyone!

Good reading.

Right now is all we have to concern ourselves with... and all we can work on, right now

Life isn't easy to most ppl. It takes a new perspective for that, imo.

All I want is contentment...that's what my end goal is. For if I'm content, what does it matter anything else??

Sky, I was just reading Lauren Bacall's take on that:

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I figure if I have my health, can pay the rent and I have my friends, I call it "content."

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Everything is constantly changing. The key is to be able to keep up with it.

Content doesn't exist unless you can keep re-defining it.

Hmm no, content for me is established in it's form... for me, I said. That would be that no matter what is going on around me, no matter what is going on with me... that it's all ok and God has it under control. I stay in His will, doing my best...not wiggin out ... being, you know...content regardless. Yeah. That's what I'm getting to.

"Content," for me, is a time of rest between activities when I don't feel pressured and am just "groovin"

Hi Sky and Friends,

You are striving for a Ph.D. advanced version of content. As usual you astound me.

Has anyone heard the quote, "Life's not fair. Get over it." Leonard Sweet

Perna,

Where did you get that great picture of a church?

Hugs,

EJ

Perna - what a wonderful thought!

Thanks!