When I think of the events of my life, most of them were unexpected. That was until I was past the event and looked back at how they came about. How much do we really expect to happen in our lives versus much unexpected happens to us? Our expectations are built on experience, knowledge and dumb luck. Dumb luck? Yep.
We have so much that we credit dumb luck to, but call it by many different names. For instance, we have experiences that go back to when we have our first memory. Those memories form the basis of how we interpret and look at our world. We gain a mount of knowledge from both education and experience and apply those bits of knowledge to our lives in hope that they will somehow be better. Then there is dumb luck.
You are sitting at a desk in 6th grade taking a geography test when you have a brain freeze. The question is before you but it could have just as well been written in German. So, you take your best educated guess and throw up your hands. Later you find out that your answer was right! Dumb luck.
The questions get tougher and tougher as life goes on and the answers are harder and harder to get right. While in the 6th grade you had your teacher who was surprised at you getting it right; your friends didn't really care either way. The need to be right was for one person, your teacher. Later in life that could be the same thing with another adult, your boss, your spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend or other person in your life.
The dilemma surfaces with the introduction of intimacy (not talking about sex yet). The more intimate the relationship, the more making the right choice, decision, or action is scrutinized. Often this invasion into your psyche is unwanted even if the answer is potentially right. We don't like to have our private world lived publicly. Intimacy is meant to be between one or a few but never by the general population.
My life is no different than yours. Well maybe in some areas. I look back over much of my life and still ask; "What happened?" The only answer I can come up with is either Murphy's Law or life happened. These equally frustrating events/laws are what makes us or breaks us. That goes for all areas of life. Wishing and wanting won't make things better or worse. Neither will dumb luck. What makes things better or worse is our action or our inaction.
I've gone fishing many times and sometimes even caught some fish. It took a few years to discover this but I discovered that fishing isn't about catching fish. It's about distraction, evasion, and time of few expectations. In a boat or dock, line in the water, no cell phone signal, couple of sandwiches and something to drink and no one around. Except that person next to you who is there for the same reason...to escape. Dumb luck takes over and you catch a fish or become this other person's counselor.
Sometimes I go to a populated location and find a place to sit and just watch people in whatever they are doing. They range from the lost to the impatient. Their motives are both public and private either leading to choices that they may or may not want to make. Life happens and dumb luck throws the choice at their feet. With a shrug of the shoulders they enter this restaurant or that one randomly. So they think!
Church is a real interesting place to watch people. Often, however, it's my internal self that is being watched. Hoping that this or that example doesn't make it into the sermon as you are uncomfortable enough with the dumb luck of the past week. So we squirm, go out to the bathroom, get another cup of coffee, fall asleep or just stare like a deer into headlights as life happens.
Perhaps we expect too much out of life or too little? What then should our expectations be? I believe the fewer expectations you have of others the least likely it becomes something that can hurt you. Conversely, the more expectations you have of yourself the less likely you will do nothing. Life is about doing something. Not just anything but something that is positive for those around you or even just you. When everything is said and done, life happens because of dumb luck and you go to sleep with life as it is.
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