Hope For The Best, Yet Prepare For The Worst.

When my father died in Aug. 1998, I was just beginning my senior year of highschool, and essentially in the beginning of finding myself. Still living off of my parents testimonies and beliefs, I was beginning to want to learn things for myself. I began questioning things in my life, so when the loss of my father hit, my thought process began to unravel. I began to ponder and question many things regarding life. My brother told my mother weeks before the death of my father that she needs to start, "preparing for the worst." I quickly realized the importance of such a preparation. For about two weeks I was mentally unstable. Soon after much pondering, and personal discovery, I came to the conclusion that there are certain elements of this world which we can not control. One of the true gifts of this life on earth is the ability to "Act for ourselves."

I came up with the philosophy that we are a product of our own decisions. I know what some of you may think, I just said there are certain elements of this world that we have no control over, but what I mean by we are a product of our own choices, is that things occure in our lives and we have the "choice" of how to react to these elements in our lives. So I began living under the philosophy to "Hope for the best, yet prepare for the worst." So that way when a cotastrophy occurs in my own personal life, I have already mentally prepared myself for the worst, so I am already able to react in a much more postive way.

Recently I read a blog of my friends which spoke of such a thing, yet placed under a new set of terms, and words. He places the same philosophy to be able to accomplish certain goals. So instead of trying to control your situation, you merely react and move with the elements, and not against the elements. It still is heavy on my mind, exactly what type of mental steps must be taken in your thought process to be able to accomplish such a task. You see with my philosophy I know what type of mental steps must be taken in every decision, and situation. This may seem a little scattered, as I am basically writing my thought process to work my way through this philosophy. Now for example if I were to make a goal in my life to accomplish something I would in turn think of the worst possible outcome while trying to battle my way through the process of accomplishing this goal, and I prepare myself mentally to be able to deal with it, so if it were to happen it would no longer be a shock to me, and I would better react and deal with the situation and move on from that point. By doing so I live under the belief to live in the present, and treat that as a gift, and not to linger in the past, even if the past happens to be a matter of seconds away from your present standing. However my friend talked of situations where his "tapping in" helped him to accomplish the goal, and my beliefs don't help me accomplish that specific goal, because I could fail, my philosophy only helps me remain happy, and not in constant sorrow. Happiness being my main goal in life on a daily and eternal perspective.