Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Akanksha, Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Magpie11, Maria the Silver Fox, Padmum , Rohit, Will knot, and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get thirteen different flavours of the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by gaelikaa.
“It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.”
~ Unknown Author
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Unforeseen circumstances happen because we project our current state of mind to the future, without taking into account all possibilities that are likely to influence the future. For instance, when I was planning for my retirement, possibilities of illness and care-giving responsibilities were never in my wildest dreams. Actual retirement therefore, became unforeseen circumstances for me ten years ago, and during all the ten years, I have continued to believe in the beauty of my dreams and know that they will come true. I have however factored in unforeseen developments to throw a few spanners in the works and am prepared to face the unforeseen developments too.
That is wisdom by hindsight. Unfortunately, I keep coming across people who keep on imagining futures full of joy and happiness based on their current situations and imagining that when the current situation changes to what the future promises or is hoped for, to be, they will be in Valhalla. When that does not happen, disappointment sets in and whymeitis sets in. The frequency with which I come across, “if only” predictions remain precisely that, wishful thinking.
For instance, I just met a newly married young lady who went against the wishes of her parents to marry a colleague, only to find the man an unpleasant oaf in the mornings, and to add insult to her injury has changed his mind about finding a place of their own and insists on staying with his parents. From all accounts, perhaps one sided, but all that I am privy to, the mother in law is a termagant. I doubt that the couple will see their first wedding anniversary. Was it really unforeseen? Could the very troublesome situation have been avoided by some careful investigations prior to the marriage?
Unforeseen circumstances are so, precisely because they were unforeseen. If only we can visualize the future with some built in variations, our disappointments will be that much less. But I am afraid, human beings are not programmed that way. And, there is also the high improbabilities of forecasts coming true one hundred percent; and we never seem to learn from such failures to forecast accurately. This too is a peculiar human condition and I am not an expert to comment on why this is so, but am just making an observation.
I think that I would rather be like Bruce Lee who said – “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
And look what happened to him! He died at the age of 32, at the peak of his career and popularity. The official cause of death was acute cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) brought about by a hypersensitivity to aspirin. Bruce’s brain was found to have swollen from a normal 1,400 grams to a lethal 1,575 grams.
