So much in life is dependent on chance. Did we get good, healthy parents who gave us attention and guidance? Did we have the misfortune to be born to great wealth or terrible poverty, either of which can limit our choices and kill our imagination and initiative?

Okay, I hear you laughing at great wealth being a misfortune, but, from what I have seen, it can kill ambition and open a lot of the wrong doors in life. It is very easy to fall off the edge when expectations are high and you have little understanding of what the real world is like.

Yes, great poverty is a much larger hurdle to overcome. If you don’t have strong ambition and great strength of character, it is very easy to be swallowed up by the walls and the sink holes that surround you. But you grow up knowing that there are better places than where you start. I think there can be advantages in seeing that the world can be brighter where you are trying to go, rather than having the world so bright behind you that you find yourself staring into the shadows.

The real determinants in life are the choices you make from wherever you start. We all face a point in our lives when we must assess our particular strengths and weaknesses and decide which will dominate our path.

Luck determines where we start in life, but our choices determine where we finish. If we have the strength of character to overcome the stuff that circumstances and people throw at us, we can live good, productive lives.

Each of us has a “Stranger at the Door” (In the Cat’s Eye, Snap Screen Press, 2009) challenging us perhaps, or just waiting out there to see what we can make out of the great blessing of life.

We can pass the years hiding from the stranger or we can make the decision to open the door and face the world, no matter how much of a storm may be blowing.

The choice is there for all of us, no matter where we come from. What will you do?

Glenn K. Currie

  

                    The Stranger at the Door

There is a stranger at my door.

I hide behind my chains and locks,

Afraid of his judgement.

He has traveled a great distance

To demand more from me

Than I know how to give.

Through the drawn curtains,

I hear him taunting me for my fears.

“The Earth is too large”, I say,

“The universe is too small”, he replies.

My mind runs in circles

As I watch the mirror change.

I am torn between less and more,

What I am and what can be.

My vision is flawed by temerity.

Yet, if I dare, I will see

Who now stands so quietly,

This stranger at the door.