Can you get a good life because you bargain well? Do you believe that if you complete your half of the bargain, life will grant you the rest, are you sure that what you put in influences what you get out? For instance you might be looking for love, therefore the bargain might be that if you slim down you will find someone to love you, after all it’s only your weight that makes you unlovable, and that you think, is down to you. You are sure that if you go to the gym every day and eat healthily you will never become seriously ill, because only people who abuse their health get sick. You believe that hard work and dedication will always be rewarded in all spheres of your life, in other words life is what you make it.
If this is true can you ruin your chances by throwing down the gauntlet, gambling with the cards life deals you? Sometimes we think people get what they deserve. They gamble with their health, with relationships and with their financial security. For them life is about picking the right odds and believing that after that fate takes control. They expect bad things to happen but rely on the odds that good things will balance these out.
For most people life’s outcomes are unknown and unplanned, a series of swings and roundabout rides. Sometimes the ride takes you to the top, sometimes to the bottom and sometimes you end up exactly where you started but where the ride stops is uninfluenced and unpredictable. Some of us avoid the fairgrounds and gambling dens of life altogether, preferring to know for sure that whatever happens is down to us alone.
Is it better to take a chance? Maybe just to get on the ride is the only way to learn if life ever reveals how to influence where it stops.
"Have the courage to face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than you bargained for"
Stanislaus I
Title quote by Jessie B. Rittenhouse