All good things must....

All... good things must come to an end.

At the risk of sounding simple minded, I feel this quote is probably one of the most profound(maybe even profoundly forlorn) truths I've ever come across. Nothing lasts. It's not the way the world works. If
there were exceptions, things that had the potential to regenerate indefinitely, the nature of the world would be to find a way to destroy it.

In my personal life. Good things are infinite, but too often they are short lived. I get a new pair of shoes, I have money for the rent, I am caught in a moment of inspiration. all these things tend to wear out quickly, and be replaced by other trivial and abundant Good Things. If I want to evaluate my quality of life, I sound (at least to myself) like a 5 year old.

I'm grateful for my books
For my bottleneck slide,
for new socks, for my music,
head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Eyes, ears, mouth and nose.

Then there are the big things. Right now those things are pretty shallow, but I'm grateful for them because I've either never had them, or I had them but they were not "good" for me before. They consist of things like my job, money to spend, a car, a place to lay my head. These things are a huge part of my quality of life. And I know my car will crater sometime down the road (please, not too soon). I'll move out. I'll outgrow my job. Before long money will become one of those things that I theoretically earn, but before I see it, it will gone again, paying my tuition, then a mortgage, remodeling, baby diapers, clothes and binkys, a tricycle, and then all too soon, tuition again. I'm okay with reality, really. I'll admit that sometimes I tend to forget the inherent nature of the world, and maybe sometimes I think it must be revolving around me, and aligning itself against me.

And then there are the things that are so much of my life that I hate to think of them as things... because that mortalizes them. Friendships.

I'm not saying that I have hundreds of friends and that my life would be meaningless without them. not quite. I have very very few friends that I feel are part of my life but those few that do have a profound influence in who I am, affecting how I live and how I see the world around me. I won't try to explain how I don't value the views of strangers(when I say strangers I mean causal friends as well), and yet put so much concern into the views of my close friends. It scares me to think that I am simply a complex combination of all the people who are in my inner circle, past and present. Some of those friendships have come to an end, and I was devastated with the loss of some, and I initiated the ending of others. But in the grand scheme they were all "good". And I have those relationships to thank for what I esteem in myself.

I have noticed that I am only given as much as I can handle when it comes to good things. I don't feel short-changed. I'm just noticing the balance to it all. I will lose one thing and gain another and maybe I wanted one more than another, or all, but I needed what I got. I had a meeting with my boss. I am in the process of moving up at work, making more money, gaining more authority, learning to become high functioning and an effective leader. But hours later, an ending. something I would have given up A LOT to keep. But it's not the nature of the world to make things easy. No way to cheat and see what's coming up, when to poise yourself, when to pounce. for all the planning in the world, sometimes you just have to watch and take what you get. The trick to learn is knowing which.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.