Do I have goals in life? I do. And very ambitious ones. How am I going to fulfill them? Well, I have some ideas and I will go shaping my plans as I live life to the fullest and consider the circumstances that destiny and/or God present me with. God? Destiny? Or are they random circumstances? Do we have any control over them? This is precisely my inspiration for this month's post. Nothing is guaranteed. We can dedicate long hours and put all our energy towards achieving that so longed objective, but it doesn't fully depend on us. Our determination plays a huge part in overcoming obstacles and succeeding in our endeavors, but there's also a luck factor, a randomness factor, destiny, God's will, or whatever you may want to call it, that plays an important part in the fulfillment or failure of our plans. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. And I have experienced this in a number of ways in the last 1 or 2 weeks.
Nothing is guaranteed. I have been working in an IT company since June 2007. I really didn't like what I was doing but the pay was good and it was helping me pay for school, so I had to swallow the bad-tasting work experience in order to continue studying. After a year of working for the company, and right after I got back from New York 2 weeks ago, I got home and checked my emails and learned that my contract would not be renewed. The reason? I don't know. No one talked to me. Maybe they realized I didn't like the job and I would not continue working for them after I graduate. Maybe I was no longer useful for them. Maybe it was too much of a complication since my job was business oriented and as for an IIT requirement my job had to be technical and related to my field of study, so every time I renewed the contract I had to lie and describe in the IIT paperwork that I was working in something I was actually not. There's a new CEO in the company and he probably didn't like this... anyway, they did me a favor. Sooner or later I had to leave the company... but to be honest, I was planning on this job to pay for this semester's tuition. How am I going to pay for school this semester? I don't know. I have no idea. But this is not the first time. Since I got to the US, many times I did not know how I would pay for that semester's tuition, even 1 or 2 weeks before the semester would begin, and somehow I have always been able to pay for it. This time will not be an exception. Nothing is guaranteed, though.
Is financial need going to continue conditioning my life choices as it has done all my life? I promise myself it will not. Not after I graduate.
Nothing is guaranteed. After 5 years living in a small apartment with part of my family, my parents have recently bought a house and we have spent all last week moving our stuff to the new place. It's an old house, pretty ugly I must say, but the price was low and it is in a really nice area, so the idea of my parents is to invest in the lot, construct a new house, and then sell it for a juicy profit.
Last Friday we were all in the Dodge Caravan of my dad going back to the apartment cause the new place still didn't have gas nor hot water, and suddenly a 16 year old girl, who apparently had just learned to drive and had a new and shiny driver license, turned into the street we were driving in and hit us on the front passenger side. It was not a big accident, but the van was rendered undriveable and my mom was injured in the head and sent to the hospital. Fortunately it was just a minor injury, nothing serious – see pics :) - but... think about it. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. You could be driving with your family and a drunk driver hits your car killing your parents and ruining your family forever. Anything could happen. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. We can have fantastic and ambitious plans, but suddenly something like this could happen and all your dreams would be shattered into pieces, maybe even destroyed forever.
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How vulnerable we are. How insignificant we are. How arrogant we are to think that we control our lives. How stupid we are wasting our time in inconsequential and superficial activities that do nothing but just distract us from much more valued and generally neglected things. Things that we learn to value once gone, once we don't have them anymore. This could be your last day, enjoy it :) and do not regret anything that you do.
It sounds pretty alarmist and tragic, but...
Nothing Is Guaranteed.
