Getting Whacked Upside the Head!
Nothing changes. I’ve
heard it said a million times, “People don’t change.” And, “You can’t change people.”
Hmm…. Might be true,
at least at some fundamental level. If a
person is colorblind, that isn’t going to change. If a person is conditioned over their early
childhood, to steal things, well, that be hard to change. I think the idea that “Things” as in life conditions, say being very poor as
a child, or not having the opportunity to go to a good school, not being
allowable to change, would take a great deal of the hope out of living.
And without hope
(?) what is the point in getting up in the morning?
Alcoholics, other damaged addicts, people who commit crimes
– without the hope that change can happen, that life, with work on their life choices, any kind of future becomes just a jump off a high
cliff.
Then we do have
that fundamental level – the possible
physical impairments, disabilities, genetic disorders that can be accepted as
challenges, or restrictions. The fundamentals of these conditions,
situations, may be possible to change, but there is often that choice – challenge or restriction. That can change. That can,
at any point in a person’s life, change,
or even be changed.
Just for myself, I can say I have
received that phone call where
before the phone rang my life was going in one direction on a seemingly immutable path and after that particular
phone call, it had made a 180 degree turn – at least a 90 degree turn. I have had those days when I left the house
in the morning as one kind of person and returned in the evening as a
completely different person.
The details are not all that
important, I might get into them a bit, we’ll see. This is a blog and I don’t work from a hardened outline. So … maybe … if it fits.
The whack upside the head
can happen at any instant. Even during
sleep. One instant your life is “like this and “whack!” , your life – your whole life – is “different”.
One example; you discover you are
going to become a parent. You wake up in the morning with your life
centered around yourself, thinking and focusing on just yourself, maybe
inclusive of a relationship, but mostly just you. You go to bed that night with the knowledge
that very soon you will be responsible for a new human life.
Now that is a, “whack upside the head”! I have had others. I have had the “I’m going to be a father” whack six times. But I have also had the life changing job offer telephone calls and mail, or emails (as of the last fifteen years or
so.) Okay, I admit it, I woke up one
morning with a horrible hangover and decided I was never going to drink alcohol
again – and I haven’t for over thirty-five years. Even when it was free.
I think my objective in writing
this is more for the younger readers. I
mean if you are say less than thirty (?) and believe you have your life course
set, your career and all that set; the concrete has hardened, there will be no
changes. If you are pleased with things
as you have set them, don’t be. If you
are upset or disappointed with your life as it is and believe you are stuck,
don’t be.
It might be a good whack or it might be a tragic
whack that you get. It can happen
once in a lifetime or it can happen a number of times. The odds are mostly in favor, I believe, that
it is
going to happen – at least once. I
believe the odds are that it will happen more than once.
When the whack is favorable, it is a mistake to think it happened because
God loves you more than other people.
Just as when it is more tragic,
or damaging, painful, it is a mistake to think it is because God has it in for
you for some reason. But pay attention
to the fact that you have been whacked! There is always a lesson to be learned – if
you survive, of course, relatively unscathed physically.
******
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Dale Clarence Peterson © 2014
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