Structure
"So your life is a vomit stain on the wall."
This how the latest conversation with my friend Al ended.
According to him, his life is what you'd get if "some seven-year-old suddenly felt nauseous and threw up all over the wall." His life structure, he says, is anything but. His life is structured like a mess. Like a vomit stain on the wall, with a bit of sausage up here, and a little of yesterday's breakfast down there.
Waving his hands in front of him, "It's all right here," gesturing a five-square foot area. "It's just all over the place." His life lacks structure, but not direction--this much I can attest to. A lack of structure, as I gather from him, allows him to roll with life's curves. A girl comes out of his rear-view mirror like so much a 'vette barreling toward him on a country road, and he just rolls with it. He has no idea what he's going to do, or where he'll wind up, but he'll figure it out. He'll figure it out.
If you had a kid take a Sharpie to the wall, and run from one end of the hall to the other, that'd be the structure of my life. At least only up 'til I graduate. As Al put it, using his two hands to section out the air in front of him, "You've got this. Then you've got this, and this, and this. It's all right there, one at a time." Something happens that I don't expect, I'm ready for it. Damage control procedures were in place long ago. I got a good idea what I can do to deal with it, without deviating too much.
The lack of flexibility, and Al's abundance of it, allows us both to deal with life's challenges. The difference is that I think ahead, and Al thinks around.
Whatever works for you. Whatever lets you get through the day. In the end, whatever keeps you sane, and failing that, whatever keeps others thinking you're sane.
