We Know We Will Die; We Will Never Know We Are Dead
I don't really know what constitutes success. I do know that, no matter the measure, my own life is not at the top by any means of measure. And yet, many a late night, looking out over a quiet, vast horizon from my high rise, I always realize that the odds of my surviving and living the life I now do, were not great. If I had been born in another age, before modern medicine, I would have died in childhood. And so it goes, without a series of unearned advantages and fortuitous opportunities in life, none of my 'success' would have ever been. I always feel more lucky than proud. Those who see in their own good luck more self induced success than luck, are arrogant dumb ass fools. They have no real concept or sense of relationship to God's evolutionary process. Each person inherits unearned genes and unearned environments. The process plays out, God's created laws of evolution do their thing, progress ensues, God's will is done. IF someone is helped to a better life it will be through the kindnesses of others, not God counteracting His laws of evolution to protect us or enhance our personal status in the scheme of things. What humans have, to a degree more so than other species, is the ability to make things better for others----human, animal or plant.
If life has gotten better for any of us, it has been primarily through the help of others, whether it be through individual help or collective help via politics/religion of some sort. Slavery ended because humans put an end to it. Women got the right to vote because humans collectively gave them this right. What humans have, at this point in evolution, is the ability to help themselves and other species. Of course the whole process of evolution is a God created gift. BUT, how individual humans fare, anywhere on the globe, is dependent on the Golden Rule. That is true religion, not any self serving faith that God personally intervenes on behalf of any 'chosen' flock via human created dogmas.
It is what it is, we do the best with the hand we have to play, we do what we can to better our own lives, and for contentment to ever be achieved we need to practice the Golden Rule and let others count as much as ourselves, to try and level the playing field for others less fortunate---and in so doing all of this we will find such virtue it's own reward----PERSONAL CONTENTMENT.
