Reflections on Life

Life has a way of not happening the way we expect it to. I’ve just begun to figure this out in the last couple years. We have everything neatly plotted out, and then something comes along which challenges everything we’ve figured out. Sometimes other people do things which surprise us. And then sometimes we surprise ourselves. We wake up one morning and realize we’ve somehow turned our world upside down. We suddenly know we don’t know everything we thought we knew. The cherished assumptions we’ve held for so long are now looming question marks. We can’t explain it. We just know something has happened. Maybe it was the result of an instant epiphany. Or the culmination of imperceptible experiences. Who can know? All we’re left with is the certainty that we are now different. And that there’s no going back.

There are some things we know without a doubt. There’s the rock solid foundation of our life. Some things don’t change. But there’s a lot of other “stuff.” Assumptions that aren’t a necessary consequence of our foundation. Sometimes we believe things just because. Maybe because that’s how it has always been. Or because we thought it was right at one time. But those things can change. And maybe they ought to change. Because it is ok to say you have changed your mind about something. It is ok to let your assumptions and principles evolve over time. It is the foundation that matters, the core objective truths we can never deny.  The way these truths work out in our lives will change over time. Because every experience changes us. Each day can make us cling more stubbornly to our presuppositions. Or each day can make us realize that we don’t know everything yet, and that there’s this enormous world out there to explore. Each experience can make us close up even more and determine to never change our opinion about anything. It can be terrifying to realize that things will always happen to challenge our dear principles. We can decide to never change. Or we can see it as an opportunity to grow, to become a fuller, stronger, wiser person. And that choice is completely up to us. We can’t blame anyone else for anything in our life. No matter what happens, we are always in control. It is our choice to let experiences drag us down or use them to become better people. No one else can determine what we do.

And those are my recent reflections on life 🙂