Unfairness

[DesertBob]

You are so right that I am angry ... but mostly since I was a teenager and started dating Steve all I wanted was to get married to him and have a family and live happily ever after, well it all happened except what happened to happily ever after...I never got that!

Happily ever after is a fairy tale. A beautiful one, a compelling one, but it is not reality. The problem is that living that illusion for decades it had become a strong motivator because you'd told yourself that this will be your reward for all the work and sacrifice. Please understand I'm not criticizing or teasing here ... there's nothing wrong with you or what you wanted, you've simply drank some kool-aid somewhere along the way, and society dishes up plenty of such things you can buy into. God knows I've swilled my share of kool-aid myself. Who wouldn't want to live happily ever after. If only ...

Do we deserve to live happily ever after? Some would say yes. Our founding fathers said that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are god-given rights. However, pursuit is not a guarantee of success. It's just the freedom to try.

I guess I should be happy for the time I did have and our girls but damnit we both deserved the happily ever after all that we worked so hard for.

One would think that diligence would be rewarded. But the problem is, evidence suggests that the distribution of outcomes is in fact fairly random. Even the Bible says god sends his rain on the just and the unjust alike, shows mercy to whom he chooses, etc. As I look back as objectively as I can on the story arc of my own life, I see little direct relationship between the rewards I HAVE received and the effort I actually put into them. I'd like to flatter myself that whatever success I have is the result of my own efforts, but honestly, I can't. Everything I've ever touched, business wise, has turned to gold in the long run, and I can't tell anyone why. There isn't a best selling book waiting to be written about it. On the other hand everyone I've ever loved has suffered and died or gone insane, with, thankfully, the exception of my children. Don't ask me to explain it. It's absurd.

I'm not suggesting despairing and giving up. I'm just saying that as near as I can tell it's always a mistake to assume that outcomes you judge to be bad are some kind of punishment or that you are to be personally congratulated for outcomes you judge to be good. The cause and effect relationship there is weak at best. So, we don't have to take tragedy personally and either condemn ourselves or blame god.

The older I get the more I realize I don't know much about anything. I have been living my life according to conventional wisdom, religious dogma, rules of thumb, assumptions, hope, dreams and aspirations -- everything but objective evidence. Maybe I need to change that. The good news is I haven't got anything to lose, so I can give it a whirl and see if I enjoy improved outcomes and better peace of mind.

Better days to you,

--Bob

[DoubleJo]

Actually Bob, I was replying to your statement that life has limited your choices. In your circumstances you have the ability/freedom to make many choices. How encircled within yourself you decide to become is certainly your choice to make. However, accepting the fact that it was your choice to marry again after only 6 weeks of knowing someone would explain where the power lay in the choice. Take care- DoubleJo

[DesertBob]

DoubleJo,

We all bring a certain amount of suffering upon ourselves but we can't be responsible for more than being true to the light we have at a given point in time.

Lots of people have whirlwind romances that work out. Lots of people have five year epic engagements that don't. You presume a great deal to suggest that my personal decision to not date Linda longer than I did is an "aha" moment of some kind. Shorter courtships are, all things being equal, riskier, but all things were not equal in this case. I will leave it at that. It's not something I want to go into. For a few blessed years we were deeply bonded and loved well. Whatever issues we had could have been worked out under normal circumstances. These weren't normal circumstances.

This isn't about my relationship with Linda and how it did or didn't work out or second guessing something I did fourteen years ago or blaming Linda for how she acted under extreme duress. It's about two responsible adults attempting to find happiness together and running into a mine field. It's about over-estimating what one can reliably expect in terms of grace in the pursuit of happiness.

Marriage is a high-stakes game that I don't choose to play based on what I now know and understand about it. Based, in fact, on what I now know, it's not a game I ever would have chosen. This isn't to say married people are chumps, but it's to say it's not for me. I am tired of putting my heart out there and having it broken in the most creative possible ways by a universe that's indifferent, at best, to what I'm trying to accomplish. Message received.

If that makes me cowardly or bitter or small or irresponsible, so be it. I don't think so, though. As you've pointed out, my life isn't half bad at the moment. I can scarcely change it at this point without screwing it up. And that, in itself, is interesting information.

--Bob

[leeann]

Birth, Death and Love are messy.