I just got off the phone with the mechanic who is essentially rebuilding the motor on my Lexus Hybrid. That’s the car that I will be making monthly payments on until the summer of 2028. Originally, Adam predicted he’d have the car fixed in a week’s time but that has just been extended to a week and a half and, if I want to be pragmatic about the whole thing, it’s likely that I won’t be getting it back for yet another week. With Enterprise charging me $50/day for a rental, this is taking a bad financial situation and pushing it into the world of untenable issues that I have no control over.
In all seriousness, this fiscal challenge won’t be in my rearview mirror, so to speak, for a solid year. That’s approximately how long I see myself ponying up $100 a week to pay it off. This, of course, is in addition to the car payment, the obscenely large insurance premium and all the other crap that I have to pay every month. That is, as most people are dying to remind you, life. It is chock full of difficulties and financial hardship and it is an integral part of our challenge on earth.
But it’s more than “life.” It’s gravity. These are precisely the sorts of things that keep people from feeling free and easy, if they allow it. Now, if one decides that they refuse to let stuff like that wreak havoc upon them, they must push against the gravity. Like most instances where we must offer resistance, that can be an exhausting ask. But the choice is not difficult: one must look at themselves in the mirror and find the strength to endure or allow the undertow to drown them under the salty ocean of minutiae.
Sometimes the phrase “if it’s not one thing, it’s another” ceases to be the slogan of the defeated and becomes more a source of power. Figure it like this: if life wasn’t clobbering you with massive car repair bills, it’d be breaking your heart with romantic issues or the garden variety tragedy that none of us will escape: the loss of loved ones, terminal health problems or happenstance in the form of car accidents, violent crime and familial obligation.
This, however, is not a screed on the impossibility of living a happy life. This essay is designed to do just the opposite.
How could this be so, you might ask. Up to this point, you’re not making a terribly compelling case for human existence. As a matter of fact, it seems as if you might be trying to talk people into believing that life is a futile search for serenity that most people will never achieve. This is not so. The crazy thing about life is that, just like one of those choose your adventure books, you get to decide if you want to see it that way or the way that I see it.
Because the way that I see it, as counterintuitive as it seems, is truly positive. . Not the artificial see no evil hear no evil philosophy but the “this is what I will choose to focus on” technique.
Taking my little girls to their first nail appointments. A friend telling you that they love you. Seeing your book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. Taking your agent out for lunch and listening to all of her stories with rapt attention. Reading words that change you forever. Laughing with your kids. Or crying as you watch them sing in school choir.
Isn’t a lifetime just a series of moments that only happen once, interspersed with an endless stream of hardships, annoyances and generic bullshit? Bullshit that tricks us into thinking we’re enduring things others never will?
Far be it for me to smear all of my twelve step sponsor wisdom all over you, but anyone who has ever looked up to the sky and asked, “why me?” should instead be staring into the looking glass and asking themselves, “why not me?” In other words, terrible shit happens to everyone. All one need do is wait their turn.
I remember once watching “The Sopranos” when the Russian immigrant Svetlana tells Tony, “That’s the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad to ever happen, while the rest of the world expects only bad to happen. And they’re not disappointed.” There is just as much truth in that quote as you will find in “A Farewell To Arms.” And if you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you already know how much I love my Hemingway.
But if you have been privileged enough to get to know someone who has grown up in Beirut, Gaza, Central America or Somalia, then you already know the truth of this. Those countries don’t even have true crime television shows because for them, it’d be like Americans turning on the channel to watch the sun shine. It’s redundant. All they need to do is look out their kitchen window.,
As usual, my fingers are dying to go all stream of consciousness, but I’ll spare you the guided tour of Billy Manas madness and leave you with nothing but method: you will never have control over circumstances but you can always have control over you.
Besides, who started the rumor that we’re supposed to be happy all the time? Happiness is like snow. It only happens a few times a year and you don’t get to decide when or where.
But you do get a good shot at “how.”
absolutely! that's why I left the US inn 2018 and moved to the Philippines. I've never been happier or felt better in 40 years. I'm grateful for Covid giving me the time and encouragement to work on myself.
Excellent reminder to be grateful. My truck is in for a 2 week stay, clutch, brakes and 4-wheel driver motor. I remind myself that I have done maintenance only for past five years and it could always be worse. Thanks for a great start to Saturday.