You Don't Get What You Deserve

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. - Mark Twain

Sometimes you have days where you exclaim what a friend of mine puts succinctly as "thank goodness I didn't get what I deserved." Two events reminded that today was one of those days.

First, I had brunch (yes, brunch.. don't judge) with a great friend and former professor who had made a large contribution in functionally saving my life a few years ago when I was (hopefully) a much different person dealing with the consequences of making much worse decisions than I do now.

Though we don't get together as frequently now (my fault), some portion of the conversation are dedicated to updating him on what I am up to. Because these conversations act as snapshots of my current life, we both reflected on where I was when our friendship began and the path to where I am now. I was humbled and reminded of the fact that there were a lot of people from '08-'09 willing to see beyond the scared, angry kid I was and instead focus on my potential and help me move from the former to the latter.

The funny thing about memory is how much of the total situation falls away to the point where you recall only a few fragments (usually the ones that cause the smallest amount of emotional upset). The other funny thing is how all the details come rearing back in vivid detail simply through conversation with the people that were there.

As we wrapped up our conversation and departed from the restaurant, I took stock of where my life is now and what it was just a few years ago. All of my relationships are fantastic (at least they are for me), I am awash with more opportunities than someone my age should be getting and have made enough progress as a human such that there are slightly more people who have nice things to say about me behind my back than those who feel inclined to say otherwise. Considering all the selfish, hurtful things I've done in the past, I am thankful that I have not gotten the full brunt of what I deserve.

This is what I was thinking about when I stumbled upon this:


That's right, a free skateboard with about 8 skateboard decks underneath sitting right in front of my apartment building. Double. Winning.

Life has a funny way placing things into motion such that your life works out the way it does. Sometimes you miss a deadline by a few seconds or make a wrong turn or you decide to have some agency and overcome that fear of making a connection with someone. All the little inches in life put you in place to give you the hand you have today. Everything that didn't work out (both good and bad) is giving you everything that is working out (again, both good and bad). The free skateboard I got today after brunch is a function of a desperate email I sent in November 2008. I didn't deserve it, but I'll took it anyway.

Some people may say that Karma is a bitch but I think that she's a pretty decent gal. I'm sure that if we look over our lives we'll realize that we a got a decent amount of good stuff and avoided at least 10x of the bad stuff we deserved through the same channel: serendipity ...or fate, if you are so inclined.

In either case, be thankful. Life is short. Continuously performing gap-analysis and complaining about how things "should" be is not good stewardship of your life. But if you must do it, then at least acknowledge the negative consequences that could have very well played out to make the life you have now a blessing.