You will eat from the fruit of the trees you plant in your life

This is not what I was going to write about this week, but I had to search myself to come to grips with something that has been on my mind and I found it to be a totally “Life Truth", a natural law, or natural order of things.  Random events do happen. I am not talking about the bolt out of the blue. That brand new water heater exploding, the semi truck that crossed the center divider or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like a train in Paris or other random happenstance.  

In large part the stuff that happens to us is something we bring about for ourselves. This is the premise of this post.  Please note I among all are most guilty as I have brought fruit both good and bad into this existence.  So this is for me as much as it is for anyone else that might read this.   The New Living translation says it like this “Don't be misled--you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” 

What do I mean exactly when I state the above?  In the movie “Megaforce” the statement made was that “it’s all in the wheel”. A more familiar phrase is what goes around comes around.   What are the practical applications? The most basic would be if one does not squander their funds then when an emergency happens there will be funds available for that emergency.  I have been at times totally guilty on this charge. If one dedicates oneself to a task be it writing or exercise or just good manners those will have benefits that will be tangible to the person.  Then again the inverse is also true.  I knew of a person that took their annual and sick leave when it was accrued the result of that was when the person had an emergency there was no leave time for them to use for that emergency the person went into an excess leave situation. They basically put themselves into a hole.  Personally I experienced this in a less severe instance. While moving to the home I now live in I got a hernia in my groin region that required surgery, not only was I out for 10 days, I could not laugh for two weeks without significant pain.  At the end of this time I had a significant number of very strong painkillers that I was getting to like too much.  I had to make a conscious decision to endure the pain, which was not as bad as it was 8 days earlier so I weaned myself off them.

I have to speak for myself as I know myself best.   I have been in situations where my judgement was not the best in fact it was dang stupid.  I walked away from a job to go on tour with a Drum and Bugle corps back in 77 or 78.   I allowed someone to check out a customer with my employee code and got fired when the good buddy took $20 bucks out of the till yes I got fired.  I entered relationships because I was either, depressed, lonely, drunk, or just a feeling at the moment (you can guess that feeling that was) that came back to bite me in the butt (literally) not telling that story.  I even got into a situation decades ago because I felt sorry for someone I knew it wasn’t love, but that was 100 percent on me.  Every time I got myself in a trick bag I put myself in there.   Let’s look at the other side of the coin I need to balance this with some positivity.   There are those that the world says are lucky I can think of a few athletes, businessmen entrepreneurs, actors, writers and such that are called lucky. No one knows about the hours in the gym, track, pool or court. No one considers the failures that followed a person for their lives until they got that break.  In the movie “Jason Bourne” Tommy Lee jones is the villain. What most people don’t know is that Tommy Lee Jones helped Ben and Matt at their lowest point with some food and cash and that cash enabled them to write Good Will Hunting.  Remembering his friend Tommy Lee Jones Matt offered the part of the CIA director to him. He didn’t have to Tommy lee Jones probably did not need the dough, but it was not really to repay him, I believe it was to recognize his contribution to his becoming a movie star that commands large sums of money, fame or influence.  Good works will be rewarded in kind one just have to have the patience to see it to the end.   Loneliness is a tough one.  Being by oneself allows the self-talk to get so bad that it screams to you I have to do something. That something is sometimes the wrong person and the entirely wrong time. What I have learned over time is that I can be alone I actually like myself to the point that I can be by myself for long periods and enjoy the process.  Learning how to love oneself is one of the best things that a person can do to avoid a lot of mess.

 There are instances of Stuff happens and sometimes it’s real bad.  I had a friend a best friend she was a coworker and lived in the next apt complex.  When she was ill I took her to the hospital when she needed to talk I was there, I even got a call when I was teaching a server class with the question “Have you eaten yet? Come by after class and ill have dinner for you.  Truly a best friend. I was going through something at the time and in fact it was 10 years ago when we were neighbors.  I told her good bye one Friday evening as I was leaving town for the weekend stating I will see her Monday at work and we can do lunch.   Monday came and her supervisor called me to his office and asked if I saw her this morning.  I got totally scared and went to her apartment and found her. She had passed sometime that weekend.  That is something I will remember to this day losing a really good friend but there was nothing I could have done it was one of those things. I will tell you that it hurt really badly. The bottom line was it was unavoidable it was going to happen whether or not I was around or not.  That could not be helped it was her time.  The best thing one can do is think of what will happen if I do this or that. One can choose if they lose their temper or not, one can choose words that uplift instead of hurt, or one can choose not to respond at all.  Remember actions and also inactions have consequences. Let’s hope all yours are good ones