It's not all in our control, thankfully.

Mother Nature has made one thing abundantly clear this weekend. We are not in complete control of our destiny. Outside forces have been and will continue to be a major player in anything we try to do.

So should we just give up?

Not at all. Just the opposite, really. If we had total control, life would be a breeze. We’d just set out to do something and it would get done. We’d all be millionaires and running or working for absurdly successful businesses. 

Fortunately, that’s not the case. Yes, fortunately. Because when everything is easy, victory is hollow. How can you possibly feel good about success when all you had to do was put in a little work to get things done? 

It’s this counterintuitive bit of insight that fuels the most successful among us. Hard work doesn’t guarantee a single thing, but it makes you infinitely more grateful when victory finally comes. And it’s that gratitude that serves as the ultimate reward.

So we struggle, scrape, fail miserably, try again and ultimately find a way to gut out the occasional win. And once you get one of these under your belt, you feel a bit more confident about getting the next one. And the next one. Until it all starts to feel like you almost have it all figured out.

That’s when Mother Nature or fate or the economy or some other random bit of fuckupery swoops in and delivers a knock out punch that puts you right back on your butt. 

And you say “you’re welcome”. Because you wouldn’t want things any other way.