The idea of ‘You can get and become anything you want’ is bullshit.

Of course it is.

A huge pile of crap.

How do I know?

Well, I know people.

We’re just too stupid and ignorant to be gifted with that capacity.

We’d never be able to carry the responsibility.

And life would be a horrible mess of indulgence and utter lack of surprise.

What makes existence so exciting and colorful is that we don’t know what will happen.

We don’t know the effect of what is now kept away from us, the power of present pain, and the magic of overcoming resistance and adversity.

We are really, REALLY bad at seeing the big picture.

Imagine if every person on the planet wanted to be a truly amazing tennis player, and made that happen.

Wouldn’t that totally defeat the idea of professional sports and spectators and fans and exceptionality?

What would happen with contrast, with dreams coming true, and with overcoming hopeless circumstances (which probably wouldn’t even exist because we’d all be floating in our private pools)?

Would we ever choose to live in poverty for a while, or skip the experience if we could?

If we’d really be able to get whatever we want and become whoever we want, where would that leave spontaneity, nobility, generosity, disappointment, stamina, and even things like ruthless bankers and power-hungry leaders?

Life is exactly what it is because it’s so incredibly uncertain, and because we often get what we don’t want.

Even the fact that much of it doesn’t seem fair is exactly what makes it so colorful and diverse.

You can win and you can lose.

You can win for a while and then lose, or lose for a long time and finally win.

It’s all possible, but not all influenceable or controllable.

We NEED the stuff we hate and dislike and fear, because that’s exactly the special sauce that spices everything up.

And I don’t know about you, but I most certainly wouldn’t want to know exactly what will happen in my life, from day to day until I die.

Leaving it all up to us would be the stupidest thing ever.

How would we even know what we truly need, and how experiences build on each other?

That’s why it can never be true, the idea that we’re able to influence life and create it and sculpt it exactly the way we want to.

Now you might say: well, you CAN become whatever and whoever you want, but only as long as you work hard enough, so it will certainly not happen to everybody!

Which is also bullshit.

There are millions and millions of people who work all day long and sometimes during the night too, and are barely able to survive.

And there are many people who just fall from one advantageous situation into the next, without breaking a sweat.

There’s no such thing as ‘trying hard enough’ or ‘doing your best enough’ or ‘outworking everybody’ or ‘just dream bigger’ because it’s all relative and without guarantees.

Life is not a logical party with clear rules.

These ideas only keep being tossed around because they spark hope, and because we feel deeply ashamed and useless if we don’t succeed, so that’s always our fault.

We just bury those ‘failures’ and forget about them.

We get mesmerized by the few people who seem to have made it happen, and forget about the rest.

Come on, there are SO many holes in this way of looking at life and our perceived influence!

The universe is way too intelligent to create tiny, temporary entities with personal fear-based agendas and ever-changing moods, and hand them the power to control the whole fucking thing.

I’m not telling you to give up or stop believing what you believe, of course not.

Do and think and try whatever you want, absolutely.

It’s just the toxicity that hides within many of these ideas that I really dislike.

So make it a great day.

Or just see what happens.

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(Photo by @rhett__noonan, for Unsplash)