If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.
Eleanor Roosevelt
How many times have you come across someone complaining about how unpredictable their life has become of late? How many times has that person been you?
Life is an endless roller-coaster ride. It keeps throwing fresh challenges at you, mostly when you least expect it to; it loves catching you off guard. It enjoys putting you into demanding situations. Life is all about challenges. It actually depends on us what we make of them. We can let those problems bog us down, or use them as launchpads to achieve all the things we had always wanted to. Whatever we may do with the lemons life gives us, it is downright foolish to expect the serpentine river of life to follow a straight, predictable path. Think about it: would you be half as excited about a forthcoming trip with your friends or family if you knew what to expect? Probably not, right? Then why expect otherwise from life?
Life, at best, gives you signals – hard-to-decipher signs – about what is to come. However, it is not easy to decode those cryptic messages. In fact, it is perfectly fine if you even decide against trying to do that. The most predictable thing about life is, after all, its unpredictability. That being said, we must not use life’s unpredictability as an excuse to justify our failures. Like a Samurai, we must always watch out for any hidden opportunities that may come our way, even if they appear as threats at first. That is probably the best way to both embrace the essence of life and enjoy its capricious nature. As was once stated by the erstwhile American First Lady, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt: “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”