What To Do

In theory, most if not all of life's necessary lessons are laid out in neat and nice prose that leaves nothing much for equivocation and challenge. When one reads holy or pious books, or how-to books from home improvement to human resources issues for that matter, the prescriptions or precepts for how things are to be done, and done right, are usually neatly cut and dried, making one confident and self-assured in meeting the challenges of dedicating oneself to human perfection. Resolves usually are strongest and most determined at the start. They only start to wane when one proceeds with the execution of the tasks resolved to be undertaken.

The unnerving demands of reality start to make dents the minute one is confronted with the application of lessons that one thought would be relatively easy to apply and execute. Then confusion and doubts begin to eat away at one's being, evoking questions as to whether one has the wherewithal or constitution to do certain things right.

One finds that even the most resolute of determination one could possibly muster cannot match the ambiguities and ambivalence of real life or of one's natural aptitudes. For the religiously inclined or those devotees of spirituality, it is during those angst-ridden times that one is asked to turn to the supernatural or preternatural. To put trust in things or someone, both our senses and the acquired tools of logic and reason cannot readily discern or discover. We are asked to have faith therefore in things unseen and unproved because one knows and believes they are right and righteous.

Again, it is well and good at the reasoning phase of this rationalization. The suggested rationalization that when one finds one's natural means inadequate for the tasks resolved, one can try to bring to bear the higher means at one's disposal. But once one starts with the reckoning and proceeds again with the task, the many vagaries of reality can almost guarantee the eventual failure to accomplish. It would appear that human nature with the assistance it could harness from all possible sources is still no match.

Thus many are wont to regroup, revitalize, and begin again with the never-ending resolve to do a better job at life. This I find is the case with my own longings and struggles. There is never a day when one can afford to be complacent and self-assured in most any thing that happens daily in this world, regardless of how successfully one may have acquitted oneself on a similar situation in the past. There simply are no guarantees. Even practice does not make perfect.

Plus, one also has to account for the fact that one operates in a real-life environment where one cannot even expect harmony and cooperation from one's own family and relatives. In this respect, one stands as a solitary island in the turbulent quest for human perfection.

This to me is the essence of the lesson learned that in the final analysis what is reckoned is not that one arrives at one's destination, but how and what means one utilizes in undertaking the journey.