"Sometimes you're ahead. Sometimes you're behind. The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself." I grew up thinking certain aspects of life were like reading a book. Everything would be building towards a singular climax, which was known as adulthood. In my mind it was almost a destination that you reached. Once you were there things were different for you. You somehow magically were aware of answers that eluded you while growing up. I wasn't sure when this kicked in, but I assumed it had to be somewhere in your twenties because the eighteen year old people I knew seemed just a clueless as me, they just had more experience at it. This idea of destination also led me to think that once certain things were achieved they couldn't be undone. We all have losses and gains throughout our lives. It's not always easy to accept that today doesn't equal tomorrow. What you have now might be gone in an instant. When you weren't looking something great gets dropped in your lap.
I've had a few reversals of fortune in my life and I expect before I'm done, I'll have a few more. Each one felt unexpected, even if looking back I could have predicted them well in advance. The first one I remember was in 7th grade. Somehow I had gotten a large amount of money. Well large for a 7th grader, which was about $75. I started making all these plans for what I was going to do with that money, which included going to the art supply store and stocking up on various paints and pencils. Unfortunately for me I brought this money with me to school. Not wanting to keep that amount of money on me, I decided to put my wallet in my locker. You can pretty much see where this is going. The next time I opened my locker my wallet was gone. At first I thought maybe I had misplaced it, but it didn't take long for the sinking realization to hit me that someone had stolen it. I remember thinking at the time that all my plans for artistic greatness had just been destroyed. For weeks afterward that loss hung over my head. I kept replaying in my mind what my life would have been like if only I still had that money. The thing is that my life was pretty much the same as it was before I got the $75 in the first place.
Jack said "It's just, when you buy furniture, you tell yourself, that's it. That's the last sofa I'm gonna need. Whatever else happens, I've got that sofa problem handled." There is an assumption that certain things in your life will need to be taken care of once. You'll always need to buy food, get gasoline, or pay for your home in some form or another. Those are expected expenses that everyone just factors into their lives. Things in life can change pretty quickly and it can go in either direction. Sometimes this happens so fast that we're just not prepared for it. It's not limited to financial position in life either, although we tend to put a lot of value into that, maybe more than we should. A sudden injury can change your life forever. Everything that came before is changed because of it. Our bodies are both resilient and fragile at the same time. It doesn't take much of a push to break us to the point that we will never be the same again even if we survive the initial impact.
Some people never recover from certain reversals of fortune. It's strange because in many cases those situations are recoverable, but the loss itself feels more devastating than it really was. Most people have a great ability to endure. No matter the situation, they can survive it and in some cases overcome it. Lost your job after ten years. Figure out how to live without a steady income until another job comes along. The economy for the past few years has knocked down several people when they least expected it. People who were making six figure salaries are taking two or more jobs to pay for everything. In some cases people are using the whole thing to permanently change their situation. A reversal of fortune can put you back to a point where you get a chance to do things differently. We rarely get opportunities for a do-over, but there are moments in life where we're presented with a chance to go a different route. Each setback or leap forward could be seen as simply moving you to the point you're supposed to be at. I used to have a plan for myself. It was this idea of how I wanted my life to play out. As we learn, very few things go according to plan. Every time something didn't go how I had planned, it would bother me because it felt like my plan was crumbling around me. Looking back all those reversals of fortune both for good and bad have led me to this moment here and now. Being here and having experienced all that came before will hopefully prepare us for what comes next, even when it feels like an unexpected hit from the left.
