(05/06/04)
I was talking to some of my older friends about life and stuff, and one of them decided to spew out some ignorant crap about "I guess I wasn't meant to find a job yet." He attributed his lack of employment after college to "God's Plan" instead of blaming the job market or at least some politician. And I've decided that I'm sick of hearing about what "God's Plan" is "Meant to be."
I still believe in God, even though I've been doing a lot of thinking. Just because something happened doesn't mean that God wanted it to happen. Oh so your girlfriend cheated on you and had sex with her old high school friend? And she broke up with you? And she's getting married to him? I guess it wasn't meant to be. That's just like trying to justify murder by saying "well he's already dead, I guess he wasn't meant to be alive anymore."
I can't believe so many people say things like this. People talk about "I think she's THE ONE" and I can't seem to understand. The same people end up getting divorced from time to time, so I guess she wasn't THE ONE, jackass. Movies like Serendipity piss me off.
If you believe in fate, then you don't believe in free will. If there's no free will, what would be the justice in punishing wrongdoing and rewarding good? Since one cannot choose to murder, theft, assault, charity, and love, then it isn't fair that some people have to suffer consequences. It's at around this point that you'll start sounding like the jackasses who believe that people who grew up in rough environments shouldn't be held accountable.
Speaking of rough environments, take a walk through East Austin sometime and ask yourself whether the crackheads were part of God's Plan. Maybe a tour of Brackenridge Neo-natal will show you that it was God's plan for premature babies to be born on respirators. I mean, God did allow for respirators to be invented so that these babies could live to see the age of 37 days, so that MUST have been God's compassionate plan.
Stop your whining and just acknowledge that your life may not turn out to be what you hope for it to be. Maybe your child will be born with cystic fibrosis. Maybe your wife will be brutally raped after stopping for gas. And maybe we'll all be drafted and a lot of us will die in Iraq.
What is the point of this rambling? If you're always telling yourself that things will work out for the best and other foolish optimist thinking, you are living in denial. While in the state of denial, you may not be able to change the world for the better. Examples: if you think that some girl broke up with you and you just weren't "meant to be" together, then you might be tempted not to fix the problems that caused the breakup. If you can't find a job and attribute it to "God's Plan," you may never get off your ass and find a way to make money. Stop lying to yourself and go change things about yourself and your world.
