I'm sure many of you have seen the following chain letter come through your mailbox at least twice. Someone out there wrote a short list about what Life isn't about - an idealization about Life, actually. And I'm sure like me, you read this thing and went, "Yeah, right." However, some one else out there did more than just sluff this off. They wrote an appropriate come back for it (admittedly, it's a bit on the religious side, but it's still good). So here, we present both sides of the coin.
Life isn't about keeping score.
It's not about how many friends you have.
Or how accepted you are.
Not about if you have plans this weekend or if you're alone.
It isn't about who you're dating, who you used to date, how many people dated,
or if you haven't been with anyone at all.
It isn't about who you have kissed.
It's not about sex.
It isn't about who your family is or how much money they have.
Or what kind of car you drive.
Or where you are sent to school.
It's not about how beautiful or ugly you are.
Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to.
It's not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, or brown.
Or if your skin is too light or too dark.
Not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everybody else
thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are.
It's not about what clubs you're in or how good you are at "your" sport.
It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing
who will "accept the written you."
LIFE JUST ISN'T.
But, life is about who you love and who you hurt.
It's about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully.
It's about keeping or betraying trust.
It's about friendship, used as a sanctity or a weapon.
It's about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening.
About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip.
It's about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.
It's about who you've ignored with full control and intention.
It's about jealousy, fear, ignorance, and revenge.
It's about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow, and spreading it.
But most of all, it's about using your life to touch or poison people's
hearts in such a way that could have never occurred alone.
Only you choose the way those hearts are affected, and those choices are what life's all about.
It's about how many friends you have and how accepted you are (says the politician,
the movie star, and the kid on the playground).
Life is about if you have plans this weekend or if you're alone (says the lonely woman
in her old armchair).
It's about who you're dating, who you used to date, how many people you've
dated, or if you haven't been with anyone at all (says the teenager).
It's about who you have kissed (says the gossip and slanderer).
It's about sex and drugs and STD's (says Janet Reno and condom-distributors).
It's about who your family is and how much money they have and what kind of
car you drive (says the college, the club, the clique, and the popular kids).
And life is about where you are sent to school (says the employer).
Life is all about how beautiful or ugly you are (says the producer, director, photographer, and model).
And life is what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, and what kind of
music you listen to (says the fashion magazine and the trend-setters).
It's about if your hair is blonde, red, black, brown, mauve, or rainbow (says the clown).
And if your skin is light or dark (says the racist).
Life is most certainly about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart
everybody else thinks you are, and how smart standardized tests say you are
(says your parents, your teachers, your boss, your future, and your relatives).
It's about what clubs you're in or how good you are at "your" sport (says the sports enthusiast and the snobs).
It's about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who
will "accept the written you" (says most of the entire world).
LIFE JUST IS.
BUT (...and this is a big "but")...
Life is also about who you love and who you hurt.
It's also about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully.
It's also about keeping or betraying trust.
It's also about friendship, used as a sanctity or a weapon.
It's also about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening.
About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip.
It's also about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.
It's also about who you've ignored with full control and intention.
It's also about jealousy, fear, ignorance, and revenge.
It's also about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow, and spreading it.
It's about using your life to touch or poison other people's hearts in such a way that could have never occurred alone.
SAYS JESUS.
Only you choose the way those hearts are affected, and those choices are one of the things that life's all about...but it is most certainly not the only thing.
You see, whoever wrote the original version of this was deluded. Life most definitely is about how attractive you are and how talented you are and how fortunate you are. Life most certainly IS. The original writer, whoever s/he may be, blindly stated "LIFE JUST ISN'T"...maybe because it sounded good or was a neat phrase...but that is a big, fat, dangerous lie. LIFE IS...and it IS all the time and everywhere. Look on the T.V. screen. Look in the Wall Street Journal. Look in the magazines and on the billboards and listen to the radio and watch movies and buy products...what is life about? It's about superficialities. It's about clothes and popularity and keeping score and money and all that is appealing.
But here's the catch...that's not all it is about. It's also about arm wrestling with the things you're given and winning. Whoever wrote the original LIFE JUST ISN'T was close to being right...but s/he ignored a crucial fact of Life...you don't just deny the truth in the hopes it will go away. You can't tell a kid that it doesn't matter if he's ugly or pretty, because it damn well does matter. You acknowledge the painful facts of life and then try to work against those facts. People who aren't attractive, or who weren't rich, or were never popular...some of those people have managed to do marvelous things...but they are few among many.
That's why it's dangerous to lead people on with sayings like: "It doesn't matter if you're unattractive or not"...when you and I both know that it most certainly does. Unattractive people (in a worldly sense) need to realize that harsh fact so they can try to destroy the implications...so they can show the world what true beauty is. Poor, unfortunate people need to realize that the men with the money make the rules so they can try to prove them wrong. Dave Thomas (creator and founder of Wendy's restaurant) was an orphan with no family or money and now he's rich. He was one of the few people who acknowledged the fact that life was indeed about riches and wealth and he set about pushing aside worldly limitations in order to gain what he has. For whatever reason, life gave him a wooden nickel and he cashed it in for a life of security.
The whole point is this: it's nice and fun to believe that the superficialities in life don't matter. It's great to sit down and write a little essay on how clothes and cars and friends and looks don't matter; but it's wrong. It's true that those things SHOULDN'T matter, but the fact that they do matter is never going to change. You don't send a child to climb a mountain and tell him its a valley. You say, "Look here. That is a mountain and it's going to be hard to climb, but God and Jesus and I will be with you every step of the way and we'll help each other get to the top." Then you both struggle and, whether you make it or not, you try your damnedest to defeat the mountain. Life is about acknowledging the stupid rules of the world and then about trying to break them.
No one who truly believes that LIFE JUST ISN'T is going to get anywhere in life. Open your eyes. Life is ugly, life is beautiful, life is hard, but life is fun. LIFE JUST PLAIN IS.
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Authored by: Ken Lipka E-mail me: krlipka@yahoo.com |
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