Woke up today with a terrible feeling that if anything disastrous would happen to me today - I probably would not be ready.
For the past five years or more I haven’t been challenged by life that much. There were problems, of course, but nothing that would hit me hard and knock me off my feet. For a very long time now, things were pretty much stable with anyone around me being healthy and somewhat happy. And don’t get me wrong - I am grateful for this. My problem is that comfort and easy life are dangerous to your character.
When muscles are not exercised for a long time, they become weak. Your character is like a muscle - if not challenged it loses its strength. Most of us know what good virtues are, such as kindness, modesty, forgiveness, respect. When life is easy (and unless you are a dick) we tend to cultivate those and it works, most of the time.
However, what I have personally found about myself, is that whenever things get a bit hotter like I have a bad day at work or I just had a not so sweet argument with a person I care about, the whole virtue pyramid starts shaking. Suddenly, even if for a split second, I become less emphatic, more irritated, or disrespectful towards someone. A little external shake makes my perfect virtue castle crack. The storm settles, things go back to normal and then I think - what if something much worse happened to me right now? How would my “perfect” character stand then? The answer is - I don’t know. And this scares me.
That is why it is important to hope for the best and expect for the worst even if life does not give you any lemons. As a matter of fact, if it does not, give yourself some. Learn to squeeze it and make lemonade. And when a big fucking lemon crashes on you one day - you might at least have a chance to make a lemonade factory out of it. 🍋