Week Six: Unpredictable
Lucas: “There comes a time when every life goes off course. In this desperate moment you must choose your direction. Will you fight to stay on the path while others tell you who you are? Or will you label yourself? Will you be honored by your choice? Or will you embrace your new path? Each morning you choose to move forward or to simply give up.”
(One Tree Hill - Season 4, Episode 4: ‘Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started’)
This quote opened up my mind about how life can be unpredictable.
Have you noticed how whenever we plan things, the outcome would usually be different to what we expected? It could’ve been better or it could’ve been worse. Have you noticed how one minute we could be having the time of our lives, yet the next minute we can find that we are experiencing one of the worst times of our lives?
One minute, we’re clear and sure about the path that we are taking, but sometimes, before we know it, something unexpected happens that throws us off our course. This unexpected ‘something’ could be the smallest implication that changes plans that we had in the near future; or it could be a significant implication that changes our lives forever. The unpredictability of our lives is what makes life what it is, for there is never always one clear direction. Things are always continuously changing, and sometimes things happen that are not in our control, no matter how hard we try.
But if ever we were put in a situation like that, the one question we must ask ourselves is:
‘Which direction are we going to take now?’
Lucas in One Tree Hill invites us to think about this. He poses the questions that we ourselves, need to answer, such as: “Will you fight to stay on the path while others tell you who you are? Or will you label yourself? Will you be honored by your choice? Or will you embrace your new path?” as he emphasizes that we have two choices: to move forward or to give up.
We can continue to dwell on the past, but that has already come and gone. We live for the present which influences our future, but the past is the past - and no matter what we do, we can never go back. Hence, we must make a decision about our future. Although the path we decide to take may be a different one to what we had initially planned, in the end, we usually come to find that things have turned out better than you could ever have imagined.
I believe things happen for a reason, and whether we choose to “move forward” or “give up”, the outcome will always be influenced by the decisions that we make. And whatever choice we do make, we must always be prepared to face the consequences of our decisions.
- Germaine