The next topic that popped into my head was that of the common phrase "Just let life run it's course." This is often used refering to a situation in which a person is unsure of what to do about a given situation, such as a fork in the road. It is said mostly in the way of telling someone to do nothing about the situation instead of making a difficult choice. But, I wondered, What if life's course is for you to do something? This is also a hard concept to grasp because as in the movie "Back to the future":
Jennifer Parker: Dr. Brown, I brought this note back from the future and now it's erased.
Doc: Of course it's erased.
Jennifer Parker: But what does that mean?
Doc: It means your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one, both of you.
no one wants to believe that their future has already been written but thats exactly what people inherently suggest when they say to "let life run its course" .
Any ideas or analysis??
4 comments:
I think the "Just let life run it's course" people can (for the most part) be separated into two main groups: those who don't make the decision because they are unable to and those who don't make the decision because they enjoy the spontaneity of not knowing what may happen next. These two groups seem to be rather polar. In other words, it's hard to be both. I believe that there is plenty of middle ground for people who don't feel strongly either way, but if somebody is highly spontaneous, they are unlikely to not decide simply because they are sitting back and weighing the pros and cons of the situation. I suppose I could call the first group "list-people" and the second group "impulsive-jump-into-things-without-any-planning" people. Neither group is better or worse than the other. The groups are more personality-based than anything else.
Concerning the "Back to the Future" quote (great movie, by the way...), I fully agree with Doc. Brown. I believe that whoever people build themselves to be shapes their future. Perhaps it's just me, but I find it positively horrifying to believe that somebody other than me could be in control of my life. It scares me more than anything in this world. I suppose I will never really know if somebody actually has written my future, but regardless, the concept discomforts me.
This reminds me of this philosopher I was watching a segment on. It was a while ago, so I can't really remember who, but he was skeptical of everything, basically. For example, since you can't observe the earth orbiting the sun for yourself, how do you know it's going to rise? And how can you trust things that other people tell you when they don't always prove to be true?
He recognized that this wasn't a very good way to live your life though, and he had some quote like about skepticism like, "It's better to be proven wrong some of the time than to do nothing because of uncertaintity" (I'm paraphrasing). So that goes along with "go with the flow" really. Basically he says, yeah, there are big mysteries, like are our lives predetermined and how can we be certain that reality is real, but you can't let that stuff bog you down for living your "real world" life because there's no other kind of way to live that we know about.
To me, letting life run its course isn't so much about accepting your fate but realizing there's no way to ever know what that is or if it is, so you might as well not worry too much about it.
I agree fully with the Doc from Back to the Future. The only thing we can infer from the future are plans we make. And of course we all know that plans don't go as planned all the time, kinda like the weatherman for example.
I think pretty much everything that anyone does affects their lives in SOME way.
Whether it's a big affect, or a small affect.
If I decide to eat a tootsie roll [which I just ate about 20 of them, not even lying] that could affect the future.
I may become fat[ter] from eating those tootsie rolls.
But I decided to make the choice.
The choice that I thought was right.
[To stuff my face]
I agree with Doc Brown, and Alex, because you're given the choices to change your life in positive and negative ways.
Let your life "drive" it's course, but make sure you can pass the breathalizer test.
=]
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