eThoughts : Finding Guarantees

It seems like humans spend a great deal of time trying to find guarantees. Supposedly guarantees will make for a less stressful life—no worries, we’ve got a guarantee. I don’t know what humans would do without worries other than what we’ve been doing, which is ensuring that we’ve always got them. So finding guarantees at the same time as we find worries is one of those mysterious paradoxes in which we live.

Well, we know about what worries life has to offer, but what do we know about the guarantees? In the spirit of my usual stream of semi-consciousness, here is my shot at attempting to find just what is guaranteed in life.

It seems to me that:

The guarantee is that we will lose our way, whether it is our thoughts, our intent, our interpretation, our belief, or our emptiness. We might keep some of them together some of the time—on a good day, maybe all of them at the same time, for a time.

The guarantee is that we will break the hearts of those we love. We might nurture their hearts for a time.

The guarantee is that others will break our hearts. They might nurture our heart for a time.

The guarantee is that we will hurt. We might not for a time.

The guarantee is that whatever we have and wherever we are, it will change. We might keep where we are and what we have for a time.

You get the idea.

Can we figure/ground these guarantees? Is it true that we will keep it together and we might lose our way for a time? Is it true that we will nurture and might not for a time? Is it true that others will nurture us and might not for a time? Is it true that we will feel good and we might not for a time? Is it true that what is will be and that it might only appear to change?

Maybe it’s just a matter of wording, and exceptions may not make good truths, though reversing the order of the wills and the mights in the second scenario seems implausible—what will be negates that it might not be.

So, what are life’s guarantees? It looks like one of the big guarantees is that things will get screwed up.

Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe we like our beauty a lot more when it’s contrasted with our muck. After all, if we start with perfect, where do we go from there?

Hmmm, maybe that’s another guarantee—life can get better. Maybe if life is set up as guaranteed screw-ups along with guaranteed better, we’ll learn to quit getting angry at the muck and grab the beauty. There’s no guarantee that we will, only that we can.

Knowing that is worth a smile. And that’s a bit of beauty all right.