Thursday, July 23, 2020

Wilder: "But What If You're Wrong"

John Wilder has a new piece up: "But What If You're Wrong." He observes that: "As I get older, like [Mark] Twain, I’m not sure that I can tell good luck from bad on any given day.  So, I try to take it as it is."
I came to this conclusion after one day when I looked backward at my life around the age of 32 – the things that I had hoped for – recognition, money, and a bountiful supply of PEZ® hadn’t made life better.  The things I had tried to avoid – a near zero bank account, 16+ hour days as a single dad with a job, and life without a spouse made me a better man and made me think about the relationships between virtue, money, and meaning.
Sage advice. Read the whole thing.

     I'm reminded of a quote in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

2 comments:

  1. Yes!

    Every (and I mean EVERY) time I was down, it was the start of the best things in my life. My good fortune never made me better, but my bad fortune did.

    Just like doing 500 pushups - they hurt, but they make you better.

    Thanks for the kind words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for all your posts and comments.

      Delete

Bombs & Bants - Episode 122

 More fun and frolics (and a side trip into Canadian serial killers).  VIDEO: " Episode 122 " (49 min.)