Better and Worse

Disheartening news this morning. An old friend - falling into that "Old of the Old" category - apparently got married and then unmarried within the space of two weeks.

I weep for my friend - a father of five who already went through his first divorce last year - even as I shake my head. I know my friend, even after all of these years. He is a passionate man, dedicated to his children and the profession he has chosen, and that he feels his emotions deeply, so I am sure that he is in pain that I cannot imagine at the moment, even as his parental responsibilities, indeed his life responsibilities go on and he is expected to function.

But knowing my friend - and again knowing my passion - it is a good reminder to me about the use and abuse of passion.

I am a man of imagination - I spend more time there than most people know, even today. It's not all bad if channeled - apparently I was using "visualization" and "Theater of the Mind" long before it was popular. That said, sometimes the mind tends to run along rills of "What if" or "If only things were different. If only I had made different choices..."

The reality is that as often as I'd like to believe otherwise, the best of all worlds seldom occurs. Life is often far more messy that we expect or give it credit for, and passion (for anything) is often not enough to overcome the reality of life. That's why thinking about all the possibilities carefully before implementing the activity or relationship is so crucial, yet is something that we (especially me) fail to do so often - especially when we are young.

So what's the lesson here? Beyond a request for the pain of a friend, a reminder (again, mostly to me) that an imagined life is often not nearly as much of an improvement over the life we currently have. Imagine, yes. Implement change for the better, of course. But never let the feelings of "Things could be better" overshadow the reality of "No, they could be worse."