You can't always get what you want

I've had two wake-up calls in the last few weeks. Firstly, someone I know passed away. He was a friend of a few friends of mine. He was a larger-than-life character, could always carry a conversation, great at quizzes and liked a drink. I don't know the full story yet but it seems like his lifestyle got the better of him. Mid-50s. Very sad.

Then a few days ago an old friend from university posted on her Facebook account a link to her new weekly blog. This was going to be a no-holds-barred expose on her life. Life hadn't turned out as she had hoped. She was divorced, childless (not by choice, as she states), about to housesit to save on rent, in debt, and struggling to make ends meet working for herself. And the wrong side of 45. None of that fitted with the life path she had expected for herself. And, to be honest, it wasn't the path that I thought she was on either.

The trouble is, that's how life can be. We can only control so much. And pandemics and the like will always be out of our control. But it also makes me think about doing our best to try to shape our reality. Or, more realistically, make ourselves as adaptable and resilient we can be to changing circumstances.

You can't always get what you want. But we all have to at least work towards trying to get what we need.

That's kind of what I want for myself and want to do in the future to help others. These musings do have some rhyme and reason. I just need to flesh them out...