Are you one of those people that think they can control what goes on around them so well that you can keep “bad things” from happening to you? Do you feel that if you prepare well enough for everything that could go wrong, you’ll never have to actually deal with anything that does go wrong? If so, then I’d like you to notice that in all your efforts to avoid the “bad stuff” in life, that’s exactly all your life ends up being about: “the bad stuff.”
The people that spend a majority of their time trying to prevent things from “going wrong” miss out on a lot of what life has to offer. You can’t be off smelling the roses and enjoying babies and all the other wonderful things in life if you’re constantly preparing for the worst. And do you know what? Ninety-five percent of “the worst” never actually happens anyway. It’s a trick of our minds that keeps us focused on possible futures... I’d rather focus on the actual "now” personally.
We need things to “go wrong” occasionally to grow. All growth comes through adversity, so with no adversity there’s no growth. If everything always “went right” in our lives, we’d be bored and pretty backward. We need the occasional “hiccup” to give us the chance to expand our horizons and grow as individuals.
Having things occasionally “go wrong” enables us to better appreciate when things are “going right.” There’s a book out there written by Harold S. Kushner titled “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” It speaks to the question that so many ask: “Why is this happening to me; what did I do to deserve this?” To me, the question itself is the problem. You don’t do anything to deserve most of what happens in your life. Stuff just happens. Lose the victim mentality. It doesn’t serve you or anyone around you.
Which life would you rather live? One filled with excitement, joy and wonder moving from one exciting new experience to the next? Or one full of fear, constantly looking over your shoulder at what might be coming around the corner. You can’t have it both ways. If you spend most of your time “preparing for the worst,” then those are the thoughts that are predominately on your mind moment to moment. By spending all of your time preparing against what might go wrong, you aren’t living a life of excitement about what might be, you’re living a life of fear about what might be. That sounds like Hell to me - and you have put yourself in there. The good part is, all you need to do is change your thinking in order to take yourself right out of there to live in Heaven.
The truth is that you can’t control life. It’s too complex. It’s just too big. People that are fear-based try to control everything in order to feel safe and comfortable. The sad part is, that they waste an incredible amount of their lives preparing for things that never happen. Life isn’t meant to be controlled – it’s meant to be lived.
You are the author, producer and actor of the "movie" called Your Life. Get out there and spend so much of your time and energy creating such a wonderful life that when the inevitable “bad thing” happens, it’s a minor blip on the radar compared with everything else you’ve created.
