Experience teaches me again and again that nothing I do… no matter how honorable my intentions or diligent my efforts… will ever be perfect.
Experience teaches me again and again…
… that, even when things are going well, happiness is always a moving target.
… that I can never live long enough to do all those things I would like to do.
… that the perfect job, the perfect partner, the perfect place to live do not exist.
… that the grass will always be greener in some way somewhere else.
… that I cannot love everybody I would like to love… or love everyone who needs to be loved.
… that today’s blessings and enthusiasms so easily become tomorrow’s burdens and drudgeries.
… that even my proudest accomplishments eventually lose their shine.
… that, in order to say Yes to this, I am compelled to say No to that.
… that even my own desires… for autonomy and community, security and adventure, solitude and intimacy, comfort and meaning… live in constant tension with each other… and can never be fully resolved.
… that life can be so messy and unpredictable that it is impossible to know what I would have done differently even in the full light of retrospection.
… that there are no recipes… no roadmaps… no prescriptions… no easy answers, in any life worth living. There are only difficult choices… with no promises or guarantees.
Why would anyone expect life to be otherwise?
