Cheryl Ries

Life is a process, you can dream about your whole life, plan it out in minute detail even, following your own set course, up until the time that life happens for real.  When life intrudes on how we are living, we must make a detour, we must set our course to new geographical coordinates, and find a new direction suitable for our amended goals.  All of us are learning as we go, we are taking our cues from what happens to us as we proceed, and when we are confronted by things which we must correct in our plan, we have no choice but to redirect, reconfigure and reconnect our internal hard-wiring to be accepting of newness and variation.  Life is a learning process, the minute you stop learning, you are either dead or on your way.  There is no way to limit the inevitability of life challenging us, making us hopefully rise, and not fall to each occasion, demanding from us a certain level of participation.  Life is not a spectator sport! 

Life requires your constant involvement, each day is a rude awakening of the unexpected, combined with the planned, all to make us expectant and surprised, in a fabulous match of emotional internal ping pong.  This is the trick of life, it isn't ever what you assume it should or would be, it is always a mix of upsets swirling together with the planned.  There is never a time when we aren't feeling something from a new source, or experiencing a different situation requiring us to look for navigational help.  Even when we share an experience with another human being, the way we deal with it, feel about it, and internalize the situation will always be uniquely our own.  No one else can ever know exactly how it feels to be us. That being said, perhaps we should learn to just go with the flow more often, as life will always take us for a ride, give us a thrill and leave us wondering why things cannot remain constant and steady a while, or just more often! 

How do we learn to let it ride?  Well, the older I get, the more I realize I don't know about life, and its limitless potential to leave me dazed and confused.  Life is definitely a thrill-ride of surprise, shock, and less often, same-old, same-old.  I admit to being a fan of the routine, the usual, the constant, but the reality of life very rarely permits me to wallow comfortably in that state of being.  Life is rarely that "perpetually" anything, there are usually mishaps, snags, snafus, and dramas often causing unrest all at the same time.  The most important quality to have in life, as my burgeoning wisdom has taught me, is a sense of faith, unwielding and constant.  These most important qualities, hope eternal, faith constant and patience without end must reside perpetually within me.  That's how you learn to live through life.  Love is a given if you are healthy and in touch with your spirit, but having those other qualities to tether you to the mast, assuring that you are going to find your way through, no matter the storm, is essential to your sense of victory in this life.   Life will shock you, it will lull you in to a sense of false security, thinking there are rhythms of calm and comfort ahead, then "pow", along comes the first shock!  From that moment on, the only way to respond is to move out of the reaction mode and into the action mode, give up the "victim's" role and learn to be a conqueror, as you go!