"For me, living for the moment is facing my fears, or capitalizing on a significant, spontaneous opportunity. I try to live by the philosophy of living each day as if it's your last. After all, eventually it'll be true!"
ryanrowe.com - have you seized a day lately?

Well, that’s Ryan’s philosophy. Its rewards are immediate and direct. I won’t denounce it, at least not on his website, but I’d like to make a case for patience. We know it’s a virtue, although too many of us need to be reminded of that. It’s one thing to take advantage of an opportunity. It’s another thing to try to force it.

Robert Johnson is often referred to as the father of the blues. He had come to a crossroads, the metaphoric decision-making stage of life. He was lost. He was uninspired. He was depressed. Most of all, he felt helpless and that made him vulnerable. Johnson believed there was an easy way out. In desperation, mistakes are made. Johnson decided that by abandoning the virtues he held valuable, religious truths he had believed all his life, he could step beyond the limits of his talent. He sold his soul to the devil in exchange for ability beyond his natural reach. Robert Johnson made a decision, and it will forever be embellished in legend, because it was the wrong one for Robert and the right one for the legendary Robert Johnson.

If I want to visit Ryan in Toronto, I get on the highway and drive west down the 401. I know what my destination is and what road will take me there. Not all the paths that we follow in a lifetime are that simple. If I want to visit Ryan when he’s here in Montreal, I could get on the highway and head west before I return north. It’s faster than heading west on a road that winds along the water and then veering south, but it’s not as nice. It’s still not a terribly difficult decision. For me, the costly time and fuel expended along the water outweigh the view. I take the highway.

Now here’s the crux of the problem:

Sometimes, the roads don’t always exist to get us where we need to go. Other times, we come to roads but don’t know where they lead. Still often enough, we don’t even know where we want to go.

Picture an intersection. The simplest one would be a fork. You’re standing on a road that suddenly divides in two. However, binaries rarely exist in reality. Usually, we have more than two options. So picture an intersection with an asterisk formation. Each road you could walk down would take you to a different destination. Some might take you to other intersections down the road. You may see obstacles down a certain road, a road that’s not completely blocked. It’s discouraging to walk down that road, but you can’t let that stop you once you’ve decided that it’s the right way. It’s easier to decide which road to choose if you know where you want to go and which roads could lead you there. There are no road maps for the crossroads we face in reality. But there are many of them. We can always turn down a different road if we don’t like the one we’re on. But we will never know, until we get to the end of the road, if it was a good trip. We could never know, unless we had tried all the roads, if it was the best trip.

It should be noted that In exchange for the skill to play guitar better than anyone else around, Robert Johnson agreed to let the devil collect his soul early. In 1938, two years after his first recording session, he died under suspicious circumstances. It was two weeks after recovering from being poisoned by a jealous woman that he died of pneumonia (incurable before 1946).

My point is that while you may believe that you’re seizing an opportunity in some binary (should I or shouldn’t I?) fashion, all you’re really doing is standing at the crossroads, deciding which one of the many roads spread out ahead of you deserve to be eliminated from the decision-making process. That’s gambling. It’s dangerous and not fair.

Much can be said about allowing events to operate smoothly rather than forcing them to conform to your uniquely individual vision. Some opportunities will not be seized, but that’s not to say that they will be missed. Mistakes happen. Usually, one mistake causes another. Be patient and correct your mistake only when you’ve carefully considered everything and everyone around you that can be affected by your actions. Because here’s the real crazy thing about all this: you’re not the only one making decisions. There are billions of other people and other animals also making decisions. Every time you do something, it affects more than you could possibly be aware of. Take the time to step back and think about what you’re doing from a larger context than simple opportunity-seizing.

I don’t know the key to success in life. I know that events that can be looked back upon and contemplated in retrospect are stagnant in time. They don’t matter in the long run, because they are no longer affecting any outcomes. The only significantly existential events in the past concern their current and lasting effects. Don’t get caught up in the future, past, or present, but don’t believe the hype about today. Today’s just one day from the present that will soon be the past and was the future yesterday.

We all shine on… Let’s begin.

 

I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please
Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride
Whee-hee, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by
Standin' at the crossroads, risin' sun goin' down
Standin' at the crossroads baby, the risin' sun goin' down
I believe to my soul now, po' Bob is sinkin' down
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, baby I'm sinkin' down
I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west
I went to the crossroad, babe, I looked east and west
Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress

-Robert Johnson