Sometimes I question the good things in my life, and get anxious that something is going to take them away soon.  My life has been consistently sprinkled with so many boom-bust cycles that I’m trained to feel like good, isn’t normal. Pain, regret, forgiveness, tentative hopefulness, and success is the ugze.

Rinse and repeat. This went on for years, my soul kept getting battered with one self destructive cycle after another. But to younger, less aware Trevor, it just seemed like I was being tossed about in this gigantic storm I had no control over. Everyone else was to blame. 

As I grew past my own arrogance and gained more self awareness of what I was doing to contribute to losing a job, which led to less money, housing instability, and questionable decisions on how to make money.

I started to see the world as something I could control. At least, my own world. The small piece of heaven that I strut my stuff on, wasn’t just going to blow away with a whimsical fancy. 

Things evened out. College helped a lot, seeing professors who had healthy social skills and a good heart. I was able to lessen the anxiety, often irrational, but other times with just cause if I was acting like an asshole, that somehow all the good things in my life would abruptly slip away.

I realize that for everyone happiness has a sort of transitory nature. We feel like, really happy and then the other shoe drops. Whether or not we were waiting for it, sometimes shit happens. But, I think the qualitative difference is that, how you handle your shit, when shit happens, determines whether you are shit faced drunk the next day to not have to feel shit, or…have your shit together. Shit, I’ve probably over used certain phrases. 

If life was a lesson from Mister Miyagi, then, instead of waxing a car to show karate moves, I think the movements of life, the ebb and flow in the flux of circumstance, teaches us the graceful path towards cultivating our own wu shu of serendipity. Adversity is merely the tool through which we develop our neijia, the internal martial arts of those on the path.

The way I learned to handle the unexpected bullshit that may drop in my lap, that wasn’t actually self created, assisted in bouncing back quicker. Getting my footwork right, doing the Ali Shuffle in the ring, bobbing and weaving when life threw a left hook.

The funny thing is, bad shit started to happen less and less to me. I don’t think there was a day where I suddenly said, “Wow, I’ve reversed the polarity of magnetism and no longer attract bad stuff!?” It was more of a gradual adjustment to a new attitude, that:

“You know what? Yeah, everything will be ok.” 

And not in some cliched platitude that has been said so much that it doesn’t have meaning anymore But in a sincere meaningful “I am the captain of my fate I am the master of my soul” sort of way. It was a transition through environments as smooth as the gradient of horizon line of light faded blue to the deeper purple of the post sunset skies. 

As gratifying as that is, we all need reminders. Habits are a bitch, and creep up on you when you’re not looking. We get comfortable with what other people so graciously allow us to do, and don’t always pay attention to when we cross a line. There are no lines in the sand, but there are moments when we need to check ourselves and ask, “Am I taking advantage of a situation and half assing who I am capable of being? Or am I actually doing the best I can?”

That’s the only protective layer I can think to play the odds in your favor against the unexpected. And be gracious. Accept a windfall, not as a portent of some bad shit that will eventually happen, but just as what it is, a really awesome experience. Thank the heavens, thank your mom, the world, whomever, for being there for you and allowing you a chance to be more of yourself. 

We sometimes have to teach ourselves the basics all over again.

But I promise you, it’s ok.

                Everything is going to be ok. 

——————————————————————————————————————————-