We are constantly on a forward path. (Putting theories of the flow of time and quantum physics aside for a moment.) Whether you have faith in a guided/planned path or believe random coincidences are just occurring, the connections between them which lead one event to the next remain undeniable. Do you ever trace them back to each other? How did you get to this very moment, right now? How did you reach this crappy, awful point in time, this incredibly blissful place, or this nothing out of the ordinary period? One event leading to the next and to the next. One meeting of one person pushing you towards another. One idea following action after action. I like the TV show “How I Met Your Mother” for this. You may have your opinion about the characters, or individual episodes, but the underlying idea of the series holds true within everyone’s lives. The real story of how you met someone isn’t “at a party,” “at a bar,” “on a website,” or “on a vacation” –There is an entire background of events leading up to your presence at that party, bar, website, or vacation (etc.) and it probably goes back even further than you ever thought about. Do you ever trace back the large milestones in your life and connect the moments which brought you to that point? Do you ever look back at all the links in-between? You wouldn’t be wherever you are if even one thing was just slightly different in that path you took. To the failed relationships which twisted you in one direction or another. The awful dates which helped you out of a rut you’d have never dreamed was related. I could say one of my first retail jobs caused me to fall in love with someone I wouldn’t meet until 6 years later, but that’s of course only through a long list of events which lead from one to the next, to the next, and so on. It’s the little ties in-between each event that bring you to the next. This relates to things getter better when they’re bad or worse when they’re great. Things are never really bad or good –It’s your particular point of view as they happen which deems them one or another. When awful news strikes of your ex finding someone new, it’s a highpoint in their life. When you get a promotion, it’s a low point for someone else seeking the position. In the bigger picture, events happen. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to bad people. Neither are good or bad, they just are. We label them as we see fit. We label them as we see fit in our lives, in our opinions, from our perspectives, and on our planet. We never question events comparing them to the universe around us, the planets and the stars. (Putting astrology aside if that’s something you believe in.) We sulk when things don’t go well for us, we stress over difficult moments, and we rejoice when we get what we wanted. There is nothing wrong with the emotions, but with pegging them and the events as final settling points. They’re all merely passing moments leading to the next. Marriages, divorces, cities, friends, jobs, break-ups, personal accomplishments, loss, wealth, love, and so on –cannot be thought of say-all end-points.

We are all in a constant state of change. It’s a constant pull of relationships failing, jobs changing, financial situations crumbling or stabilizing, purchases, routes we take home, things we read, and people we interact with at any given moment –All which lead us up to the exact moment we’re in. If the bad days direct you towards the good days, should we still consider them bad days? We are all connected whether we’d like to think of it that way or not. Tiny connections spread out and across vast distances all working together with the slightest of impact on one another, expanding out and out at all times, bringing each other towards each other, pushing each other away, and leading ourselves this way and that. If you believe in fate/destiny then that is the end all workup we’re getting to. If you don’t, then it’s random, but still a point in time with events causing that very moment. All too often we’re focusing on the immediate. All too often we’re holding onto what was when it was amazing, and forgetting what hurt us. It’s never about the lead up. It’s never about the next big thing we can’t yet see. It’s always about what we lost now and not what it means we’re about to find. There is no complete. There is no perfect. There is no settled and done. Everything about our lives is on-going. You never finish. There is no one to race against. You can’t meet someone who has their career, husband/wife, children, car, house, and everything they worked to get, who is finished, completely stable, content, and completed their life. It doesn’t exist because there will always be a change in one of those things. There will always be something else to strive for. There will always be a next thing. The way you perceive a person, is not usually the same way that person perceives their life. There are people that are happy. There are people that don’t want a thing. There are people that are happy with what they have. But not one of them is happy because they’ve completed their life. They have accepted what is. There is always something next. There is always something else, someone else, somewhere else. While alive, there is something else. That’s what life is. It’s the events that keep on coming. The “bad,” the “good,” and everything in-between, they’re just markers, just launch points for what’s next to come. Lives are ever changing and ever connected to the events which unfold within them. Event to event to event to event to an unknown destination and it isn’t about a single one of those events or a single person in them. It’s simply the ride in-between them. We need to stop trying to complete our lives and live them instead. You can’t miss what you’ve lost because it was only an emotion-filled event to get you to the next. There are times it will lack what you want it to and times where you will have everything you want in its’ place. Neither of these periods will be permanent, but they will lead you to who/where/what is next. And half the time it will never be what you’d expect. It’s all about what’s next. It’s all about going forward towards whatever there may be.

“A lot of people seem to have some kind of internal to do list. They have this compelling need to get things done, but it’s hard. When you finish one thing, it usually means it’s time to move onto the next item on the list. The list never quite gets done. We’re forever in a state of unfinished-ness.”
“If you stand too close to a painting, all you see are patches of color, if you stand too far back, you can’t see any of the detail. Right now this is your particular perspective.”
-Television Show: “Dead Like Me”

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
-Helen Keller