It's not lost on me that I've got a pretty good life. I've worked pretty hard for much of it, made changes where I could, and paid particularly close attention to the quality of people I allow into my life. I have a good job, have great friends, a darling wife and child. I'm not rich, but I do OK. This is what I think we generally aspire to, and I'm generally happy.
But then you hear about things that happen to other people, just arms length from you. Someone gets cancer, a child is hurt, a job is lost or a couple splits. You start to wonder when it will happen to you. I don't think this is an issue with having a morbid perspective or anything, but I do believe that one knows intense happiness because they've experienced intense pain. Once you know that's possible, I suppose you're on the look out for it.
At this stage of my life, it's not that I fear death. I got over that a long time ago. Now what I fear is not having enough time with my wife and child (or them with me, in the more worrisome scenarios). I hate all of that "everything happens for a reason" bullshit that people use to rationalize death. I found it freeing when I accepted that the only "reason" is that everyone eventually dies, period. I can't change that, so I'm not going to stress over it. But again, now it's just that I don't want to squander the time, or have it taken from me.
I know, this all sounds horribly pessimistic, but sometimes the brain goes where it goes. I like my happy bubble, and I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to want to stay in it. We've been without any serious and instantly scary challenges for a few years, and I'd like to keep it that way. As rational as I try to be, emotionally it's still possible to feel as though you're "due" bad things.
So if karma is a thing, hopefully I've got some good stuff stored up.
No comments yet.