Unfair Though It Be, It Still Is

Punish: To cause (a person) to undergo pain, loss, or suffering for a crime or wrongdoing.

Sometimes I don't like what happens to me. I just don't. Sometimes painful things happen. Sometimes I cause myself pain by my behavior but a lot of the time the simple fact is that life comes at us furiously, ferociously, quickly. I get blindsided by a big linebacker. I didn't see it coming. That's the problem with not being able to predict the future - I don't always see it coming. There are things that, in retrospect, I see that I should have seen coming, but a lot of the time stuff happens. It hardly seems fair because it is, in fact, not fair. That's part of life, the unfairness of things.

I used to think that I was being picked on at random by a cruel and unjust god. I thought I was being punished for my behavior. Actually, now that I think about it, there were times that I was being punished for my behavior, and rightly so, I might add. It wasn't god that was punishing me, however. If I ignore my mother's advice not to stick my hand in the kitchen disposal I'm likely to lose a couple of fingers. My mother didn't punish me -- the whirring metal blades did. It's the nature of the disposal, not the nature of the warning.

I try to act well today, to the best of my ability, and then take the hits. Nothing has killed me yet.