I learned a tidy Chinese phrase today about one way to live life: everything will work out in the work, kind of the "Hakuna Matata" for Chinese people, literally meaning, when the car gets to the mountain there will always be a road, and when the boat gets to the pier, it will run straight with the current. Basically saying that even if things don't look so clear now, it'll all work out somehow or another in the future.
So far in my life, that "it will all work out" phrase has worked out. Just like the stock market, there have been ups and downs and sharp pullbacks and scary occurrences and massive setbacks, but overall whenever I've come to an obstacle, there has indeed been a hidden road I didn't foresee or a fallback plan. That doesn't always work out for everyone; a lot of people get to a mountain and then just get stuck at that mountain forever; sometimes it's a proverbial mountain of debt (student debt or mortgage debt, you choose), so it's not something that one can just rely on all the time. I often hear the phrase "it'll all be OK" thrown around a little too whimsically by overcomplacent college students or people who haven't had any adversity in their life; it's too naïve to think that everything will just work out magically, there should be a caveat to the phrase with conditions like "if you bring a shovel and dig a little bit, then there will always be a road." It's not just a road that's just lying there waiting for you to take it and ride off into the sunset, sometimes you have to strive for it and actively search for it.
I bring this all up because MJ is dealing with a lot right now with her knee injury, and for the first time since it happened I've been able to start seeing the injury from her perspective: she's already dealt with a lot of obstacles in her life, and she keeps falling into these pitfalls, and when are the pitfalls going to stop appearing on the road? For her, it hasn't always worked out in the end, and she's still trying to find her way through. Then again, some roads are windy and take longer to navigate through than others; perhaps her path through the mountains is just taking a little more time and with more setbacks than others; but it would be nice if the mountains were a little nicer to her and didn't rain down pebbles or make her fall!
I may take the "there will be a road" when I get there a little too literally; I wait too long sometimes to get into the lane I need to go to when driving and leads to us going off in the wrong direction and missing an exit or two. MJ has gotten so used to it that she just calmly lets it happen when I suddenly realize I haven't gotten in the exit lane with about 0.2 miles to go (very little time to adjust before I miss it). I guess most of us think we are above average drivers; I think so too and my mom and I get into a little non-threatening verbal tussle over this several days ago on who the better driver is; I would say I am better as I notice some of the things other drivers do that I would get annoyed about and try to develop that into my own driving, but waiting until the last moment is definitely an Achilles's Heel of mine. I also value not having to drive more than I do now; with unlimited wireless internet, I can do almost anything online anywhere, so it pays to be sit on a train or something and leave all the driving and paying attention to someone else. It'll all work out in the end when I get to my destination.
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