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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Life = Change

"For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled."
- Hunter S. Thompson


The death of bin Laden and his subsequent deportation to Hell reminded me yesterday of just how much the universe can appear, in fact, to turn on its collective head, both in micro and macro terms.  It's almost as if we are somehow cruelly wired one way...towards sameness and against change...but yet we are set apart in an existence that is designed to do just the opposite.  Well at least that's the way it seems to me.

Anyway, I don't know that it makes an awful lot of sense to celebrate recent events. What really is changing? Is YOUR life going to be any better today?  I'm not saying that what was done was anything but just and right, but enough already of the celebrations. The changes that seem to matter in life have nothing to do with killing terrorists, "decisive" presidents or what Fox News seems to think is important at any given moment.  No, what really seems to matter are the small decisions and changes we face every day.  Those are the real game-changers.

It's this swimming against a tide of complacency...of sameness...that I think is at the core of what is really important in life.  It's an existence full of little things that make the big differences.

Consider the actual raid by Navy SEALS on Sunday. What gets the headlines is the killing of bin Laden, but if you think about it for a moment, those SEALS were making countless small but critical decisions second by second as they stormed the compound.  The "big thing" of getting bin Laden wasn't so much a big grand stroke, but rather a compilation of small, purposeful strokes that resulted in something big happening.  And so it is with life in general I suppose.

Here's to celebrating the countless little decisions and changes that really matter.

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