Watching the lightning strike I can't help but contemplate that perhaps we look at life from the wrong perspective. I'm not entirely sure why, but I always figured 'lighting would strike' after college. You know, I'd get the body, the boy, the job, the life. I just figured with dedication and hard work, the luck would just come. It didn't. But I'm glad. I'm glad the lightning hasn't struck yet.
Because I wasn't ready for it. I couldn't have handled it. I wasn't mature enough. I wasn't done struggling through just barely making it. I wasn't done learning to trust and rely on my close friends. I wasn't ready to have everything I wanted. And frankly, I'm probably still not. I have a lot of growing up left to do. My priorities aren't always what they ought to be.
But the thing about the lightning is that it does come to us all, at some point. But our lives can't be judged by whether or not the lightning strikes before you turn 30. Because it's lightning, we don't decide when or where it strikes. Or when it rains. Or when the sun shines. But they come to us all.
Maybe... instead, we ought to judge our lives by what we do when the lightning strikes, when the sun shines, and when the rain falls. Do we stay as generous when we can spare 500 as easily as we could 5? Do we take time to comfort those who feel the rain when we are still in sunshine? Do we remember that the sun still shines when we feel the rain?
Opportunities, joys, and tragedies come to us all. It's how you meet them. Because I have had to work for every penny, because I had to learn generosity, because I stopped being a rather arrogant child and learned to respect those wiser than myself, because I know that not a single friendship of mine has anything to do with money, because I've learned how to live on less, are all reasons that I'm comfortable knowing that one day, when the lightning comes for me, I will be proud of how I meet it and what I do with it.
Until then... I try not to wish for anything so dangerous that if I met it before my time, it could destroy the most beautiful parts of my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment