fate – My World With Words

March 4, 2023

Fate, Faith and Consequences

A few years ago I was struck down, metaphorically speaking, by circumstances I felt were outside of my control. I’ve since realized I do have a lot more say in what happens to me, but at the time, I was easily controlled by people in authority or even just people with a lot more self-confidence. I was too nice, too eager to please.

I’m still a nice person, but I don’t sacrifice my own self-worth for others any more. It’s been a difficult journey. At the time this all happened, others told me there was a reason for my suffering and eventually I would understand why I had to go through all of it. To this day, I resent hearing that. Yes, I learned some valuable lessons. But that doesn’t justify the actions of others, nor does it make sense of what happened.

I believe there are consequences to our actions, and not just for ourselves. What we do can help or hurt others, just as what they do can affect our lives. I also believe in God, and I believe he can bring about change in our lives that we didn’t expect or don’t deserve. But I don’t believe he intends for us to suffer. Man has free will, and that brings me back to this: consequences. We are responsible to ourselves and others. Just don’t expect others to always treat you as you deserve to be treated.

Life can be difficult, but it also can be joyous. Most of the time we land somewhere in between. Right now, life is good for me. There are struggles, but I have the support of family and friends. I know the path I need to take to solve some of my problems, although that doesn’t always mean I do what I’m supposed to. The consequences are mostly mine to bear, and for that I’m grateful. I don’t want others to have their happiness depend on me.

Do I believe in fate? I believe good and bad comes into everyone’s life. I believe in luck. I believe in perseverance. I believe in myself. And that’s as much as I know on the topic, so I’m sticking with that.

Image Credits: Sad Woman © Ella–stock.adobe.com; Confident Woman © Jacob Lund–stock.adobe.com; Winding Road © tarasov_vl–stock.adobe.com

November 11, 2016March 31, 2017

It All Adds Up the Same

I’ve spent some time, not a lot, but some, imagining what my life would be like now if I’d made different decisions.

It happens most often at night, when I’m alone and not much is on TV, none of the books I have appeal to me and I simply cannot play one more game of solitaire on my phone. I sit and ponder. What makes me who I am? My experience, my heart, my intentions, my choices? I suppose all of it.

night-at-home Some of my worst decisions have led to the greatest breakthroughs in personal growth. Would I be a better person if I had not done such a foolish thing?

Or would I be making the same mistakes, leaving myself with a level of immaturity I can’t get past? Or is it those mistakes that led to the unwise behavior in the first place? How do our thoughts, actions, beliefs and fate all play together?

The consequences we face are sometimes unknown, unforeseeable. There are those seemingly small errors in our ways that lead to lifelong reminders of that one errant deed, and potentially catastrophic actions that pass by almost unnoticed…and we forget…until there is a gentle reminder, and we breathe a sigh of relief that it didn’t happen the way it could have.

There are those who face mental illness, and they sometimes make what seem to them like logical decisions based on misperception because of the way their brain functions. I’m not talking criminal behavior here, although that certainly does apply, but day to day actions that have an impact on happiness and quality of life.

whats-up-little-bug I could overanalyze this, because here’s the bottom line: as much fun as it is to watch a movie where someone is given a chance to go back in time and change the path of their life, that would be a huge gamble. What if I hadn’t married the man who betrayed me and married the one who got away instead? You probably don’t know the second man any better than you knew the first when you married him. It could have been an entirely different sort of disaster.

I am who I am. If it hadn’t been this mistake, it would have been another. I still would be me. And I’m okay with that.

Image Credits: © sapunkele — fotolia

July 27, 2016March 25, 2017

Bruce Jenner Owes His Life to My Friend Tammy

When I was merely sixteen, my friend Tammy and I were cautiously driving through her neighborhood (specifically, Tammy, who’d just gotten her license, was driving) when, suddenly, out of nowhere, this startlingly handsome, exceptionally well-built man dashed in front of the car. Tammy slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing hitting him straight-on.

She was doing nothing wrong, in fact, she was driving well under the speed limit, which is probably what saved this man from critical injury. Tammy was driving the family car, and it was a hefty vehicle. No such thing as a little bump from its front end.

The man was her neighbor, an Olympic hopeful you’ve all come to know in recent years for very different things, Bruce Jenner. Aka Caitlyn Jenner. Remarkably, I had a hard time finding a copyright-free picture of Bruce from that time, frankly, I had a hard time finding any pictures. Suffice to say, Bruce Jenner was a phenomenom, a cultural icon.

Hitting him with her car, even when not at fault, would have changed Tammy’s life in oh-so-many ways. Hitting anybody would have been bad, but we were weeks away from the ’76 Summer Olympics.

This isn’t a commentary on anything LGBT. Rather, it’s a look at what could have been. While Tammy and I joked for years “Bruce Jenner owes his life to me/my friend,” the reality is, his own carelessness (as I see it) almost did cost him his Olympic dreams, at the very least. How many of us lesser mortals are alive and walking today in much the same way?

Just two and a half years before this, I’d been out Christmas caroling with a group of friends. This was California, and while it wasn’t summer-like weather, it was warm enough for all of us to pile into the back of a neighbor’s pick-up truck and drive from house to house. Sensibilities about such things were different then.

Thirteen of us were in the back and two were in the cab with the driver when the brakes failed and the truck began to roll backward. The driver and the girls up front managed to get out, and several of the kids in the back jumped to safety as well. I sat there, frozen, not fully aware of what was happening, staring at my friend Susan, who was screaming, “jump out! jump out!”

The truck was heading for a cliff. By the grace of God, when it hit the edge, it flipped over, and those of us remaining in the truck were tossed on the side of a small incline. From there, it was a sheer drop to certain death.

Everyone survived, although the girls who had been in the cab suffered critical injuries. One hit her head on the pavement, the other, Tracy, was run over by the truck. Her mom was the driver. Later, they found the remains of the truck and were able to determine it was not her fault.

It is so easy to imagine the scenario where that would have been a tragic accident, killing up to fifteen teens and pre-teens, many of them siblings, and one adult. The world would be a different place today. How different, I have no way of knowing.

My life has not impacted the public at large, but who’s to say an offhand remark of mine, or one of the others in that truck that day, hasn’t had tremendous influence on someone who is frequently in the news?

Perhaps the injuries Tracy suffered led to medical breakthroughs. It was a once-in-a-lifetime case, doctors frequently said, challenging all they knew of medicine.

What they learned then may have saved the life of someone you know.

The lives of public figures have one sort of value to us, the lives of those in our immediate circle have quite another. Yet they are entwined in ways we don’t even know.

I may owe my life to you, today or sometime in the future, and never know it. Thank you.

Rose

Crisis

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