How often have we heard our friends, family, or strangers, complain that when things happen they dislike, they complain that it’s not how it’s “supposed to be.”

We might assume that supposed to be might be — a happy life, good spouses, obedient children, steady and progressive job in a particular career, etc. We talk about children always outliving their parents, finishing college and getting a job, marrying and settling down. Hey, that’s how it’s supposed to be, right?

I contend the idea. The older I grow, the more I believe that there is no such thing. No one is supposed to be anything, anywhere or anyhow. Life is free form, a river over a flat plain. It meanders as it wishes and courses to its own desires. Despite our previous experiences, cultural norms or hopeful expectations, nothing is supposed to be anything.

Now, when it comes to work and your boss tells you to stock the product in a particular manner, or fill out those darn TPS Reports in triplicate, then yes, there is a “supposed to be.” However, life does not run that way.

Children die before their parents, people lose their jobs, careers don’t pan out, hair color turns purple when you asked for black. Life happens!

I’m not saying you have to be happy or content with situations that are difficult to deal with. Life isn’t easy. Not with faith or without faith. Life is neutral. And sometimes your best friend may fail to wake up tomorrow for some incredibly shocking reason. Your children may hate you. Your job might fire you. Your whole world could be turned upside down.

But life doesn’t care about you. There is no universe. If the universe had a conscience, you’d be an insignificant nanoscopic piece of mold growing on the electron of an atom of a cell of a dust mite. You are meaningless in the grand scheme of existence when seen through the callus eyes of “existence.” There is no such thing as the “benevolent” universe, because there is no pretext for intelligence among its stars and galaxies and universes, and should the sum of its parts create an intelligent whole, you are so micro to its macro that to perceive of you would be a novelty, because from the point of view of existence without faith, there is no life but that which is not accidental, and all has no meaning but what the accidental life attempts to place on itself, and since accidental life has almost no control over its own life whatsoever, you are absolutely meaningless. Death is no different than life, and you have no intrinsic value to the universe, since it exists almost entirely without you.

But there’s no “supposed to be” for accidental life. Even if you make plans, your “supposed to be” is honestly a pathetic attempt to lay your hopes against the fabric of unintelligent reality.

However, if you have faith, there is a small level of “supposed to be.” Thing is, it’s not YOUR “supposed to be.” It’s God’s, which means you have only slightly more control, since God may or may not give you what you want and which most often will prove to be the worst thing possible for you.

My point is not to beat people into fearing life or despairing. It’s to remove emotional attachments to fake realities we build for ourselves, hoping that our desires will somehow affect the coming flow of time simply because we wish it.

I believe strongly that if you want something in life, lay every effort and ounce of intelligence toward achieving your goals toward that achievement. Wrestle your life to the ground and squeeze every morsel from it you can. However, take it with the full scope of what it is, how dangerous it really is, and that it doesn’t care about you. If want to shape it to your hopes, do it without fantasy. Know that in pursuit of your dreams, you will lose your parents, best friends, spouse, and maybe even a child. I hope you have friends and family to comfort you when troubles come.

I just hope that when they do come, you realize that life is precious for what we had of it, not what we didn’t. That while your child’s life was cut short at 18, he or she was never guaranteed 60 years of life, and that we should focus on celebrating that they had life at all. Be grateful they had 18 years of life! I hope they were wonderful, too!

I hope your life is wonderful, full of fulfilled dreams and achievements. But since there’s no guarantee, enjoy every moment! Embrace every day!

CARPE BACON!