Any Random Raindrop

I got a late life master’s degree in counseling, in part, to answer this question:  Why do people do what they do?  While I am now well-schooled in the nature vs. nurture origins of people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, ultimately, for me, why people do what they do remains an enchanting, enraging, tragic mystery.

Another mystery to me is why we end up with whom we do.  Why is this person my neighbor and not that one?  Why is this person my colleague and not that one in line at the grocery store?  Why is it this mother and not that one?  Why is my boss someone who values this, and not another person who values that?  That these people populate my world and not those people seems to me random, arbitrary, even chaotic.

So, I don’t know why people do what they do, I can only invite them to value me, not make them do so, and whom they happen to be anyway has as much meaning as a raindrop falling on my punkin' head instead of someone else’s.  Great.

My conclusion?  With regard to power to control others in any way, I ain’t got none.

How do I handle that?  My vision.  I see the vista of where I’m going and why and I keep my face turned toward that.  Some people will join me for a time, I will join others for a time, some people will be indifferent to what I see, some people will scoff at it.  People come and go, though.  I make sure my mind and heart are right with the vision so I can love it and believe in it so I can keep going with it.  And I do.

I’m just back to small town living after almost two decades in the city.  In a city, I can more easily remember that a world with more than six billion souls has plenty of room for my vision.  In a small town, I find myself tending to see my vision through the eyes of so few.  I catch myself.  I love my vision too much to let anyone, even someone from this small town I treasure, take it from me.