Before Fame, They Were Dreamers with Big Drawbacks! Is There a Human Inclination to Plow to Destiny?

As I pray my way through life, pondering what I desperately want help with, it often occurs to me that I am praying against Destiny.

Issues involved with what we call Destiny seem to have their own featured writer, starring author quality, as if they are ALREADY ANSWERED PRAYER to some previous request from long long long ago. Or from recently past life time in which the NEED for this piece of Destiny made itself known.

As We Get Older

Every once in awhile we stop, and say: "Oh, that's why Mary is in my life. I needed her!"

Fantasize, Bemoan, Wish on a Falling Star

Maybe it's time to look at some of those things we want to pray away, as fixed blessings for our own development, and praying them away is the last thing we should be doing.

Let's take a look at some stories from history and the news for some piquant points.

Tom Edison - "Boxed Ears"

This man's fame as an inventor is limitless. And yet a boxing of his ears when he was young, as a means of correction and anger, changed his whole life. He became hard of hearing. It made him more introverted, thoughtful, and able to concentrate in a unique way. There is no way to say that this was not a drawback, but it was also the making of him! He let ideas cook inside him because he was not "wired" like others were, due to his injuries. It could be said that Edison would not have been Edison without that strange violence against him.

Moses. --- "Mixed Blood"

Can't you see him walking the hallways of the Pharaoh's palace: "Damn. I wish I was pure Egyptian blood. Things would be so much better if I were pure Egyptian blood." Not being able to pray it away, he just went on to be Moses. Maybe you are of "mixed blood" or have an unusual background. Clutch it to your breast. It's yours. It's you. He used all the parts of his background in his life's work. And some stuff no one had ever done! Take heart in this example.

Helen Keller - "Famously Disabled"

Remember that this woman's disability led to a whole new way of "seeing, touching, talking, communicating". Her burden and the lessons she learned from it, changed the lives of millions. When Patty Duke played her life with Anne Bancroft, she must have said to herself. "I am not sure I ever prayed for this." Through the repair of her life, she became an example for those like her.

Joseph -The Most Unfortunate

Joseph spent his entire life going from one unfortunate event after another, climbing out of everyone of them through his virtue and integrity, if he had been able to pray away his misfortunes, he would have succeeded in changing destiny for his people - this would have to be considered unfortunate for them. His story also shows that good news can follow bad news, and vice versa. It teaches us something about the nature of life.

Ulysses S. Grant - Haberdasher General President

A haberdasher who became General then President. It was his methodological "averageness", his plugging along and predictable reliability that Lincoln admired. All of his competing generals looked upon him as a very "average guy". He used his "averageness" to attain the Presidency.

Lincoln - The Abandoned.

So many see his deep thoughtfulness and almost imprisoned interior personality as the engine and the furnace that became the place he ground out magnificent speeches and crafted positions from which he alone could operate. Lincoln's lonely abandoned youth definitely turned him into the man he became. And then, just when, he might have been able to relax and enjoy some of ordinary life? - He became a Child of Destiny.

Washington - The Ashamed.

The Father of our Country was quite buffeted in his early military life with failure. And yet, in an almost Phoenix-like way, he used that experience to qualify him for his next positions. Somehow he just kept on turning negative turns into positive results. And then, when he started showing up in a military uniform at the Congress, people automatically thought of him as the military leader.

Eleanor Roosevelt - The Unloved.

This was an almost ugly woman who was truly unloved and unappreciated. She carved out a unique life, right there in public and started many efforts that now have her authorship on them. Rejected very early in her married life, and to her distant cousin no less, she still managed to live a productive and singular way that would actually presage lives that more people like her live today, openly and happily.

Elizabeth - The Virgin Queen.

The "virgin" queen is her title, her pride, and her epithet. It is one of the most unique labels in history for this reason. It's not that she didn't have lovers. It was that she never married. This became her flag. She turned it into a new look. New make up. A new way of being seen, and now an immortal image that is indelible. One of the greatest queens in all of history.

Do Yourself A Favor

Stop praying against yourself. Stop fantasizing just because you can. Take you, with all of your complexities and "wish that wasn't me"s and start constructing a Happy Wholeness. Then you take the less attractive, the short, the not so quick, along with your more outstanding virtues and see the YOU that you ARE. As you do so, you will start to forget what it is that you have graded as less noble, less bright. You will start to say to yourself: "You know, your quiet winsomeness makes your more appealing." You can say: "There is a quietude about you that makes you someone that people draw closer to."

Destiny - A Complexity

Life is not simple and we are certainly not. We contain multitudes. Being human and full of life and hope, when it comes to our feelings about ourselves, it is probably advisable to hold those feelings back. Life is best lived in the present, and understood through the past. Don't pass too harsh a judgment on yourself. You never know what the next day brings, and you never know what aspect of yourself will become an important part of you. We are not on the stage alone, giving speeches like Hamlet. Clear your dream decks for much more fun! It can be done.