Life is hard. Ok, maybe not news to you and certainly not news to me, but stark in its truth. I am a big fan of the Life is Good company. They promote such a simple but true motto and for someone always trying to live life with less complication they are the perfect shirts for me to be wearing. It doesn't hurt that the dog looks exactly like my dog. It was definitely meant to be.
But one of the other truism of life is that it may be good, but it is also hard. I say all of this because I am in a hard phase right now...harder than what I have already shared on this blog. For now, I am going to keep my trials and tribulations private because the details don't really matter. What matters is that now that I find myself in a hard place I seem to have more clarity than before. On some things at least. The problems themselves are a giant ball of confusion and fear with a little anxiety thrown in for good measure. Yet in the face of adversity some clarity has risen to the surface. Oh did I mention with the clarity came lots of philosophy?
I will let you in on a little secret about me. Whenever I come up against something that scares me or something that completely knocks me on my ass I become philosophical. I guess I believe if I can dig deep enough into the problem and figure out how it works and how it came to be that somehow the answer will be found. I warn you this doesn't always work.
So my latest philosophical rant: our current economic crisis. So many people are stunned and disbelief that something so tragic can occur.
Although science likes to believe we have evolved we really have just changed the landscape. We have traded predators for bankers and lawyers and instead of hunting we go shopping in grocery stores and Targets. In the end, the whole principle of survival stays the same.
I wish I could believe that with our technology and advancements that survival was easier, but its not. Being lucky as we are to live in the place we do, we have been lulled into a false sense of security. We live incredibly luxurious lives that we believe to be the norm or the standard and then when faced with something different it seems so tragic. Is it really tragic or just an awakening or a remembering of what life is really about?
I think if I keep going I am somehow going to find myself asking "What is the meaning of life" and like all others before me not really having an answer. I was looking for some perspective. Life is hard and many times unpredictable. You can't always prepare for it but you need to always be remembering it. You need to put the things that really matter in the fore front of your mind and keep focused. You have to be willing to let things that really don't matter fall to the way side. Of course, actually doing any of those things in practice is difficult which again brings me back to life is hard.
Maybe I should create a t-shirt with a stick figure knocking their head against the wall and the statement Life is Hard.
As I like to sometimes say at work, I am reaching for my positive hat and my Life is Good shirt and just maybe that will make everything ok.
