Which would you prefer: a wild, turbulent life filled with joy, sorrow, passion, and adventure--intoxicating successes and stunning setbacks; or a happy, secure, predictable life surrounded by friends and family without such wide swings of fortune and mood?
Give me the predictable life. It isn't that I don't like a little spontaneity every now and again. I just don't think I'd like a whole life of constantly experiencing either one extreme or the other. It's good to have the middle ground sometimes.
I think of it this way: Say I win the $100 million jackpot in the lottery one day. The unpredictable nature of the highs and lows of life suggest that it's entirely possible that I'll get swindled by a crooked investment guy, causing me to lose all that money within a couple weeks. And really, it could end up that I'd be in incredible debt because of the crooked investor. One day I get the career of my dreams. A week later, I'm diagnosed with a malignant tumor. A few months down the road, doctors discover a new treatment and I'm in complete remission. Then I lose a loved one to a tragic natural disaster.
All this back and forth, I don't like. As I said, give me the predictable middle ground.
*Question of the Week comes from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.
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