The Randomness of Life

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

— Marcus Aurelius

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We often think we’re going to live forever—until we don’t. Until we see someone we love vanish before our eyes.

In my early twenties, a colleague came into work one morning with a stomach ache. It got worse. We took him to the doctor, who sent him to the hospital.

He never came out.

Two weeks later, he was gone. That burst my bubble. Youth meant nothing. It showed me that I’d better get on with truly living. So I did. I took it as a wake-up call: “You could be next.”

In the outdoor industry, I lived in towns where you’d wave at someone across the street one day and be at their funeral the next.

“You could be next” indeed.

But I think all that was actually a good thing. It woke me up to reality.

A friend loves to say, “Life will life you.” It isn’t personal; life contains a dose of randomness. You will get a vastly different hand of cards than expected.

It’s tempting, but shaking my fist at the sky and shouting “Why?” never helps—it only aggravates and frustrates.

I may feel like the dealer of the cards doesn’t care, but it also means I’m assuming life is happening to me: That life is living me, and I have no say in the matter.

But random is part of the deal, isn’t it?

The terms and conditions of life clearly show (when you look)—you are not in control of all that you think you are.

Some of us do stop and look, though. We examine. “What AM I in control of then?”

Life is a teacher.

Good teachers never give you the answers; they want you to learn them. Learning is best done through experience; often it’s the tough experiences that teach us the most.

So when you examine, look for where you do have a choice.

Before, I assumed life was happening to me. I was waiting for life to give me happiness and meaning and saw it taking it away instead. Obviously this hurt.

Upon investigation though, the ultimate realisation was that I could let life define me, or I could define it.

It could live me, or I could choose to live on my own terms. I could choose, no matter how confused and hurt I felt, to assume that life was happening for me.

Instead of waiting for meaning or happiness to come, I could choose to find it right now. I had to. I had to crack on and do it for myself and not wait for it to be delivered on some haphazard schedule. I didn’t have that much time. I could assume I had a ton of time with the person in front of me.

You just have to make the most of the cards you’ve been given. Not argue that those cards should be different.

You just have to play, even when you don’t know when the final whistle is coming … don’t you?

And maybe that provokes you to not waste a single moment, to play as best you can.

Go well!

Arjuna

PS.

If you’d like some coaching/mentoring with me, I’ve got some open spaces in my calendar.

Either a once off, or a longer term deal … comment or DM me and we can talk details.

Talk soon!