Happy with it?

I’m a big believer in the fact that we control our own destiny. Cause and effect. If you drink too much, you’ll get drunk. Run in into traffic, get hit by a car. Yet every day I’m amazed at people when they declare they don’t know why XYZ happened to them.

I fucking know why—you need to pay your bills before you start boozing it up or flying to Jamaica on a credit card. I know I’ve said this before, but if you can’t afford to pay cash for something, you really can’t afford it 19%. It’s almost like going to a shy for the money.

However I’m no longer stunned when I hear people say, “It must have been God’s will.” I’m not a believer, but many people are. I’m genuinely happy for them because psychologically it’s probably very healthy in the right doses. Yet some people use God as an excuse. They fuck something up, either through stupidity, laziness or otherwise through their own volition and then they tell you it was God’s will.

Some of these people are assholes; some of them are not. A lot of folks are just plain stupid, regardless of religion or lack of it and we shouldn’t confuse the two. Some truly believe that God has laid out a plan for their life, right up to what they’re having for dinner every night. They are having meatloaf tonight because God has willed it. Pee on the toilet seat? No need to clean that up, that’s God’s will.

Before that vein in your neck bursts let me say that I’m not anti religion. I grew up going to church and so did almost everyone else I know and nobody was leaving pee droplets on the toilet seat. Normal, intelligent people. Using God as an excuse would never occur to them. I was never really into it personally. My family faked it pretty good except for the old man, who refused to go to church. By the time I was fourteen or fifteen they felt like they did their best and finally relaxed and said fuck it, the jig is up.

I have a lot of respect for religious folks so long as they aren’t selling or telling me how I should live my life. I’m glad they found something, because a lot of people are looking and the alternatives are sometimes scarier than we like to think.

Some people believe in both God and luck. Somehow I can’t reconcile that one. Some people pick and choose which aspects of a religion appeal to them and ignore others. Some people are only religious when it’s convenient for them. And some people are genuinely pious, humble folks. I don’t wish to offend the latter.

This post was inspired by an incident this morning where a guy told me it was God’s will that something work-based happened, which has pushed me over the edge.