Could It Possibly Be Different?

There is not and cannot be an alternative present moment. It can only be right here and right now, exactly as it is, and exactly as it is not. So the only question worthy of our consideration is what to do with this moment that life has provided?

We want to quibble with this proposition: to suggest that somehow this moment or some previous moment could have been different. And then, we imagine we could have a different outcome.

What could have been was.

What is is, and could not be otherwise.

Sometimes, like you, I replay something for which I’m not yet reconciled. What if I had stayed true to my pursuit of professional golf when I was so good at the age of nineteen? What if I’d taken the football scholarship to Southwest Missouri State University? What if I had not become alcoholic and train-wrecked my life and first career? What if my first wife had not left me? What if in sobriety I had taken the offer to be Chief Financial Officer for the pharmaceutical company? What if I’d been more attentive to physical activity and physical condition? What if I had just tried harder to stay married to my second wife? What if I really had dropped off the grid and become a nomad?

I didn’t. I couldn’t. Neither could you.

What could have been was.

What is is, and could not be otherwise.

I know, we’d like to quibble again. To play with the idea that we really could have done something differently with what life provided. Still, here’s the proverbial punchline.

In any given moment, we will absolutely do the very best we are able in that moment. No exceptions.

It sounds so fatalistic, doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s just reality. Not the fantasy we like to play with ourselves, either to judge or demean ourselves, or to soothe ourselves with comfortable illusions.

What then do we have in the way of options? How can we bend fate to destiny? To realize potential or possibility? To have some chance of altering our future, and through the future of life?

First to be as present as possible to the moment at hand. To be aware of the conditions of the moment, as well as our own tendencies and histories.
Second to own our own realities. Our only option is to be fully accountable for our own lives regardless of how they happen to unfold. After all, there is no one else who can be accountable for us. There is no one and nothing to blame.
Third to lean into whatever it is that finds us. To learn and grow from it. To be willing to be made and remade by it.

To what end? In some ways it doesn’t matter. The experience is sufficient unto itself. At the same time, it matters more greatly than we can imagine.

Now … the day awaits. Who knows what may come? Or what we may become?

Nothing but the best, dear friends. Come what may. It could not be otherwise.