Building Your Own Damn Fence

About a decade ago, when my marriage was crumbling around me, I called my daddy weeping.  "Daddy," I sobbed, "this isn't what I signed on for.  I never thought my life would be like this.  I just wanted the white picket fence."

"Oh, darlin'," he replied, in his wise, loving voice, "you can still have it.  You can have everything you've ever wanted.  You just have to learn how to build your own damn fence."

Well, alrighty then.  How could I argue with that?

Do me a favour.  Accept, just for a moment, the notion that this plane of existence is a place for humans to learn.  A cosmic classroom, if you will, wherein lessons are presented (and often re-presented) for the purpose of our learning and growth.  Like school - only much harder and infinitely more important.

Now consider the possibility that besides the lessons themselves - which are made manifest in a myriad of ways - there are also forces at work to test you in the best case scenario, and to bring about your ultimate and spectacular failure in the worst case scenario.

Given the foregoing parameters, it is no wonder that humanity as a whole experiences life the way Shakespeare described it - as nothing "...but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; ...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."   We don't realize that there is any other option.

But, imagine, if only for a moment, that we have a choice.  Or, more accurately, that we have the ability to choose.

I submit that we do have this ability.  Always.  In every situation with which we are presented.  The question, then, becomes this:  How do we choose to apply this ability to the lessons we face each day?

John Milton, the 17th century poet and author, wrote, "Oft times, nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on truth and right, well manag'd."  In more common parlance, Milton tells us that the best way to make choices (and, on a larger scale, to live our lives entire) is from a position of valuing ourselves.  Taken further, when we base our life on a standard which is true to our highest self, we will always make the choices that are best for us and that will further our ultimate goal of meeting our full potential.

This theory that our immediate choices have far-reaching consequences is not a new one.  The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy reads, in pertinent part:

   "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

This is a very lofty philosophy indeed.  However, if we narrow the scope of the statement, we can bring it much closer to home and render it far more applicable to us as individuals.  For the purposes of this discussion, let us modify this Great Law to read:

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the REST OF OUR LIFE."

Looked at from this perspective, our choices - large and small alike - take on a new significance and a greater magnitude.  More importantly, though, this perspective removes us from the role of bystander (or worse, the role of victim) in our own lives and casts us, instead, in the role of creator.  We create our lives by the choices we make.  Moment by moment, we are the architects of our own magnum opus.  We are building our own damn fence....

Feeling powerful now?