Play the Curveball

It’s nice to have hopes. An idea of how – if you were master of the universe – you’d like your future, or even just your day, to go.

I’m hoping, for instance, that when I go back to the hospital tomorrow they will free my three wrapped-up fingers from the bondage of their dressings and allow me to play guitar again and type freely again and shower without a sandwich bag over my hand again. That’s what I’m hoping – it’s what I’d like to happen the most.

But guess what? I am not the master of universe. As nice as my hopes might feel to me – as much as they might comfort me – the truth is that outside my head they don’t make the slightest bit of difference to what God or whoever is in charge of this place doles out to me. My future might be a few more days of wrapped-up fingers. And if it is, oh, well.

Two roads present themselves when you realise just how impossible it is to control your future. Go down one and you can become cynical, you can become disillusioned, you can become fearful.

Go down the other and you can celebrate it.

Me? I might struggle with it sometimes, but ultimately I’m a very big fan of just how uncertain and unknowable the future is. For one, it makes it pretty hard to ever get bored.

Make all the plans you like, but as soon as life throws you a curveball, play that damn curveball, not the ball you were hoping it would throw.

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