S*** happens.
Oh I'm sorry, did I just say that? How profane, let me start over again.
Poop happens. It comes in all shapes and sizes and, sometimes, colors (oh, and consistencies). But I'm not talking about the result of a bowl of all-bran, I'm talking about poop in the figurative sense. Poop that makes you want to bang your head on a table in disappointment or wish your whole day had just been a dream. It can mean having your hard drive crash and losing everything on it, sleeping through an exam with no make-ups or, occasionally, much worse than that.
Sometimes, problems come in the form of bumps along the road of life. Things happen all the time which seem catastrophic when they occur but are almost meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I've felt that "this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me" about so many things that it'd be impossible to keep track.
Just think back to the last time you felt desperate, hopeless and extremely unfortunate. Now think back before one of our home football games this season, and try and focus on something that relates to you personally. Whatever caused you to feel like that, you're probably over it now and feel that you're a fairly healthy and well-off human being. In fact, you might feel like you overreacted and never had much to worry about in the first place.
When some particularly bad things happen, however, it can be devastating. Often times, there is very little that could have been done to prevent them and nothing that makes such a fate just. But where do you draw the line at what makes something "devastating"? Is getting cancer devastating? Lance Armstrong had cancer and came back to become the best cyclist of all time. What about Barry Minkow, who went from owning a $280 million company to declaring bankruptcy and getting sentenced to 25 years in jail for fraud? Minkow is now a public speaker and pastor and is married happily with two children.
You could say that everything is relative. Like the most recent poop that happened to me -- hitting a deer late at night on Rte. 29 and causing probably thousands of dollars in damages to my car. That sucks. But what if I'd totaled my car? What if I'd totaled my car and wound up in no better shape than that poor deer? Just driving away with some damage doesn't sound so bad now, even though this whole situation arose from a fluke of bad luck in the first place.
So why don't people just live by Murphy's Law, then, and leave nothing to chance? After all, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. A pessimist is never disappointed. Why not drive 25 miles per hour everywhere? Why stop there? Ten miles per hour sounds even safer. In fact, driving at all is asking for trouble.
The thing is, to live life to its fullest, poop will happen. Even if you are careful and go out of your way to prevent yourself from getting into trouble (a wise strategy, I might add), there will be times when your fate will be out of your hands. Call it an act of God if you must, but you'll still run into predicaments and you'll have to bounce back from them.
I think all this speaks volumes to the resiliency of human beings and our ability to overcome whatever gets thrown our way. As long as we have our health and our spirits, we'll continue to thrive.
So remember: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When it gives you deer, at least try not to hit them with your car.
Daniel's column runs bi-weekly on Wednesdays. He can be reached at mcnally@cavalierdaily.com.
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