It is good that there are things out of our control.
While at face value, such a thought does not seem encouraging or inspirational, let’s take it a little deeper.
When spring marches forward, she does so more inexorably than any human army. Spring in the Wallowas, art print from Steve Henderson Collections
Humans like control: we like to be in control of our lives and situation. On a reasonable level, this is a good thing. We all want to wake up in the morning and know, with some degree of confidence, where we will be going, what we will be doing. We want to know that we have resources enough to meet our needs, food enough to eat, the physical ability to walk and think.
But for some humans, throughout human history, this isn’t enough. The level of control they want is, to a reasonable mind, excessive. They don’t want just enough money to meet their needs, or even their wants; they want so much money that it cuts into the ability of other people to simply meet basic requirements. We call them “ambitious,” “forward thinking,” “industrious,” “enterprising,” and “aggressive.”
Money often isn’t enough. After all, once you can buy everything you can possibly imagine, what’s next? Well . . . power — the ability to control the lives of others and dictate what they do, where they live, even how they think and believe.
We read about people like this in history books. There may be a mild tut-tut for how they swept through the world and conquered it, but hidden below (especially in poorly written schoolbook tomes) is an admiration for military prowess, financial genius, political acumen. Time softens the impact that such historical magnates wielded over ordinary, real, decent people.
The artwork, Spring in the Wallowas, is a glorious reminder that some things — some very crucial things, are out of human control. Whether an important man or woman wants it or not, spring arrives on the planet in her own time, in her own way.
Napoleon may stomp his foot and order his armies forward, but spring laughs at his overweening pride, his foolishness in thinking that he, through whatever power he wields (and he wielded a lot) can stop the sun from shining, the rains from falling over the landscape, the bushes from blossoming, the trees and grass from bursting into green.
Spring will arrive in her own time, her own way, and will grow and blossom and bear fruit whether or not any human being says that she may.
Hope is a lot like that.
Thank you for joining me at This Woman Writes. Articles complementing this one are
Fear Blocks Our Ability to Think
Who Wants to Be Angry All the Time?
This Woman Writes by Carolyn Henderson 