Life inside a fortune cookie

 

Sunday, December 30, 2012

 

We went Chinese during and after our trip to Scranton for Christmas this year, and since I live my life by fortune cookies – since I can see no real logic as might as well – I collected the combined fortunes as a kind of forecaster of the upcoming year.

In truth, they seem to verify what I already believe, and how I already live my life, reflecting how we all get ahead in the world – the basic building blocks of success.

I don’t mean success in money or power, those bits of fools’ gold most people seek, but the stuff that at the end of life, you can look back on and claim real victory.

This comes after a turbulent year, full of ups and downs, conflicts which I apparently won or lost depending upon whose ledger or daily planner you look at. Survival is often the only measure of winning anything, but as long as it is survival on your own terms.

In some ways, I rediscovered myself this year, starting out as a blind man after serious surgery only to have my eyes reopened to how the world really works, and how sadly we must play out the roles we are assigned in it.

But as the first of this last series of fortune cookies pointed out, “the man who has no imagination has no wings,” and in this year, I saw more through those eyes than I ever saw in those that nearly went blind, and have caught the fever for creativity that wandered out of my life over the last few years.

But this is tempered by yet another fortune that said, “Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm,” and the process to recreate this passion for creativity is often not easy, and requires as yet another fortune points out, “determination is what you need now.”

But all real success, as the last fortune points out, is wasted and pointless without finding yourself, and “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

I can’t think of a better road map for the future than these four fortunes, flying the way I have always flown, fighting for those things I hold dear, and making certain that in some way I make sure all this comes as a way of helping serve others, not just myself.