On finally "getting there"

:::Image is the cover illustration by Kinuko Craft.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. They had plans that were going to make things financially stable, then a couple of outlier events messed up the plan.

Here's the thing. They did everything right.

They did their research. They were conservative in their estimates. They made no frivolous purchases.

My friend sighed, "Don't you ever get to finally make things work? Why does God just allow one thing to happen after the other?"

And I get how she feels. I'm not sure why we have this expectation that life should be any other way. Is it because we spent twelve years in school with a carrot called "graduation" then went to college for another carrot called "the career" then spent more time for a carrot called "the bigger salary?" All the while being told that if we studied hard and kept our nose to the grindstone we would "get there?" (BTW, they have this track for your personal life too. Be a good girl. Dress pretty. Buy a zillion beauty products. Get the handsome husband, 2-story house and perfect kids. Live happily ever after.) Doesn't the structure create unrealistic expecations?

CS Lewis wrote a science fiction book called, Perelandra. Perelandra is a parallel universe equal to Eden. Perfect world. Only two people on it. The world is mostly water with islands that float. Having no tectonic foundations, they are in a constant state of motion. Sometimes the islands break apart and sometimes they come back together. There is one place on the planet where the land is fixed and there is only one rule by the diety of that universe: Don't spend the night on the fixed land or build anything on it.

The older I get, the more I realize that we live in a world where the land is not fixed. Yeah, we can attempt to build on the "fixed land" but that typically doesn't turn out.

The better path seems to be to emotionally, mentally and spiritually frame ourselves to live on islands that float.