As I look ie as I take a long, cold, hard, flat-footed
unflinching
look at what's happened in my life ie in my life-in-the-world,
and then I contradistinguish that by looking at what I
expected would have happened in my life-in-the-world, I'm
drawn to an unexpected yet incontrovertible conclusion: what happened
happened anyway, regardless of my expections of what would
happen, or not. And when I get that, I get my real life is
comprised of what happened, not of what I expected to happen. It's a
realization that's truly transformational, directing my focus onto the
life that is, not onto the one that isn't (and before I got that, I
lived as if there wasn't any difference between the two).
To be sure, I've wanted on occasion (on many of them, actually) for
something to have happened differently than what actually happened.
More than that, I've hoped that things would have happened
differently than the way they happened. And sometimes I've even taken
the position ie I've even voted that things should have
happened differently than the way they happened (so much
"woulda ...
coulda ... shoulda ...", yes?).
Setting that
sound and
fury
aside, the plain truth is that what happened, is what happened - and
more than that, what happened happened anyway, regardless of my
expectations, hopes, and / or votes. That's not "bad" (nor
"good" either). It's not fate. It's not predetermination. It's not
karma. It's just that what happens, happens anyway. And if what
happened, is what I wanted to happen, that's just
co-incidence. It's incontrovertible (especially the latter) one
thousand percent of the time.
It takes a certain brash, open acceptance and verve to get that what
happens, happens anyway. And you can only get that, outside of
collapsing this distinction with our favorite go-to
notions of fate, destiny, what we want, what we deserve, and the like.
This is not that! Collapsing this distinction foments it into an
intellectual point of view to be debated, a vote, a defensive /
defendable position. When I un-collapse it (even smarter, when I don't
collapse it at all in the first place) I allow myself to get it by
osmosis via
direct
experience
(Wernerobserves
"You don't get to vote on the
way it is. You already did.").
What's not always as easily getable is how little say we
actually have over what happens - indeed the truth is I seem to have
almost no say over what happens ... and yet I
live as if I have say over what happens. Really. Upping
the ante, I'll extend that to include all of us - as in
"We seem to have almost no say over what happens, yet we
live as if we do.". I'll leave that for you to inquire into for
yourself to see what you discover in it (it has no value
until you discover it for yourself).
So: do I have any say over what happens? Any at all? Do I?
I mean really? Yes, there is a say I have over what
happens: it's a say in who I'm being
in the face of
what happens. Gee! I hope you get that: even if I have no say over what
happens, I do have say over who I'm being
in the face of
what happens. Look: even if that's only true some of the time and only
under certain circumstances, it underscores the distinction I'm making:
although we may not have say over what happens, we always
have say over who we're being
in the face of
what happens. That's a distinction which plumbs the depths of real
power. It's a distinction on which transformation pivots, a distinction
with awesome leverage, a distinction whose implications for living life
transformed under any and all circumstances, are gigantic.
