Completing the foundation

I'm reading this book, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu again .

And again, a paragraph just stops me and makes me want to share it with you:

Suddenly I saw myself twenty years in the future saying the same thing over and over to students who stayed the same age, and I couldn't believe that was what I had planned on. It's hard sometimes to remember why we do anything in the first place. It's nice to think there's a purpose, or even a real decision that turns everything in one direction, but that's not always true, is it? We just fall into our lives. How did you get to own a grocery store?

And well, I must respond also. I'm not going to tell you how I got to own a grocery store. I don't own a grocery store. But it's not an accident that I do the work I do and not really an accident that I do what I do where I do it. I don't believe we just happen to fall into our lives. We make decisions everyday. We make choices. And we can change our minds. Things around us can change.

The character in the book here is talking about why she stopped being a professor and her reasons are right for her, I suppose. I'm only 55 pages in and she's not the most sympathetic character at the moment. But we can't go around saying, "we just fall into our lives." You don't have to read the Purpose-Driven Life to know that you need some type of purpose or goals in your life.

Otherwise, how do you know when you're drifting off course. Because, at least in my life, things don't just happen "suddenly." As that quote says. There's either the straw that breaks the camel's back or the brick that completes the foundation. And then the broken camel's back or the completed foundation is not the end. It's just the point where you move on from where you're at.

Maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back is also the brick that completes the foundation. It is the stone that the builder rejected. It becomes the head cornerstone. Perhaps this is all part of the creative process too.

Becoming the Buddha

Kenneth looks Kenyan. His skin is dark, his nose is long and thin, and yet his features are soft, almost delicate, like a child's. He's six feet tall, but it's only in the past two years, since he got his job, that he's ever weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds. When he's drunk he lifts up his shirt, blows out his stomach, and pats his protruding belly proudly. "God bless America," he says with each pat. "Only here can someone become the Buddha."

That's from page three of a book I just started reading, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu. Already I'm captivated by the writing and the motivating storyline: the desire for a better life in America fleeing the turmoil and instability of home in Africa, despite a great love for your home continent.

Of course, becoming the Buddha, is that even a good thing. Is it just a source of amusement. I suppose it's got a bit to do with becoming the fatted calf. Becoming quite comfortable in the land of plenty.