“Into each life a little rain must fall.” Inevitable. Actually this line was penned by Longfellow. The last part in this short poem is: “Be still, sad heart! cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.” Common fate. Days must be dark and dreary. Not uplifting thoughts, regardless of their validity. But don’t forget that line that says that behind the clouds the sun shines. In our dark and dreary times it can be difficult to maintain a positive attitude but it is true and should be a kind of encouragement in the face of troubles.
The other inevitable is death and taxes, at least according to another saying. Then there is the thought that for every cause there is an effect. There is also the law of action and reaction, Newton’s third law of motion, defined as, “…whenever a body exerts a force on a second body, the second body will exert an equal force in magnitude and opposite direction – to every action there will always be an equal and opposite reaction. It does appear that there are more ‘inevitables’ in our lives then we might be aware. So? Does this effect and affect everything? Are there other ‘thing’ that are… inevitable? Before quickly responding, think about it.
At this point you may be wondering… who cares. Actually, we all should. If there are certain components influencing our lives that are ‘givens’ then why should we ’tilt at windmills’? Equally important thought is… are inevitables always ‘bad’? If we know that something will happen as a result of a particular action, then doesn’t this give us a basis to prepare to effectively act and react? I suspect that some of the problem about ‘counting on’ inevitabilities is that we sometimes only recognize them after the fact, once the inevitable emerges.
I suspect the point in all this is a self determination of how we handle surprises or intended consequences or even suspected outcomes. Since inevitables fall into the ‘given’ categorization, our best approach is to determine what may happen prior to beginning the project. Because I am an advocate of contingency planning, I encourage this type of thinking. Inevitables aren’t as much the focus as is our behavior toward inevitables that become reality and something we will have to respond to… eventually.
