We like to believe that if we work hard, we do everything as right as we can that life will present us with a series of options, where we get good versus bad.
Most of us don’t really work that hard though. We haven’t made all the right choices, because nobody is on point 100 %.
Even if we did, life is not going to work out that way. Sometimes life is going to present you a bad option, and a worse option. In fact, I can guarantee it. Someday you will be presented with some version of “Do you want to die now, or do you want to suffer this terrible medication, and then die a little later?” “Do you want chemo, or do you want radiation?” “Do you want to watch your beloved pet suffer, or is it time to put them to sleep?”
Life is full of terrible choices.
What makes life worth it, is the road you have taken up to that point. Will you be laying on that bed, looking down your nose at death saying, “I lived.” Or will you say “I should have.”
Will you be saying life is hard, but I have my activities, my meaningful deep work, my children, my hobbies, and I will fight through because the pain is worth one more springtime bloom?
Will you say I must part for now with this loved one, but my God I spent all my time with her that I reasonably could, and both our lives were made better for it.
Because life is full of unreasonable terrible choices. What prevents those outcomes from being merely hard, instead of a tragedy is what have you done between now and then. Did you give it your all? Or were you too afraid?
Go. Try. Be better.
Best picture ever! It is such a great illustration of the point.
While life surprises us with a lack of good choices so often, it seems the choices made up to that point influence the magnitude of how bad the choices are. For example, we all get old if we're lucky. If that end from complications of age is relatively fast (weeks to months), or long and drawn out is largely up to the smaller choices we made up to that point in our lives such as fruitcake vs fruit, work vs workout, etc. It seems that the bad choices we get are likely less bad if we've developed good habits stemming from good choices putting us in an overa…
This all just points back to that age-old question of whether life is truly fair. Of course its not. You could do everything right, exercise regularly, eat healthy, and avoid all vice, just to suddenly die from dehydration or stroke. From the news, this seems to happen regularly. Or, you could do everything wrong and live to a ripe old age beyond statistical expectations. In my opinion, its better just to appreciate or even celebrate the fortunate opportunities whenever we can and help others to realize their opportunities. If its an option of bad versus worse, then we attempt to appreciate that we have options. Fatal accidents happen all the time, and when they do, we may not have the…