Dodging the Karmic Bullet

Recently, I met a fellow on a golf course who was able to explain the meaning of life to me. Many of you would not think, for a minute, of taking your life guidance from some random guy that you met while golfing, but he was a low handicapper and gave me a couple of great tips on lining up my putts, and I figured that he has about as much chance of being right as anyone else, so I gave him a listen.

His feeling was that God/Fate/Karma puts us all on the planet to accomplish one great thing.

Someone will cure cancer. Someone will put an end to starvation in Africa. Someone will paint the next Mona Lisa or Sistine Chapel. Everyone, according to this chap, has greatness within him or her, and will accomplish something. Then they can die.

My fellow golfer felt that the key to life is to search for that one thing that we are meant to accomplish, accomplish it, and then we can die happy.

I have two problems with this philosophy.

The first is that my talents are limited, and the second is that I have absolutely no desire to rush headlong into the void.

I suck at science . I can barely organize supper for my own house, and don't know how to paint. I know nothing about whirled peas. Accordingly, I have to set my sights a little lower. Well, a lot lower. And this scares me.

Based on my lack of desire to shuffle off this mortal coil, I would definitely choose, as my task, exploring the outer reaches of the Universe, calculating Pi to a trillion decimal points, or figuring out Michael Jackson's true gender. Any of these tasks would keep me alive for centuries but, alas, with my limited skill set, it is not meant to be.

What if God/Fate/Karma, recognizing my ineptitude, has picked something much smaller as my life task? Something, say, like putting baseboard in the TV room, or grouting that small patch of tile in my office? It terrifies me to think that brushing water-proofing onto my cedar deck or re-painting my back fence could, conceivably, be fatal.

Thankfully, God/Fate/Karma also gave me a built-in survival instinct, and I have, thus far, dodged the Karmic bullet by leaving virtually all of the projects that I have started unfinished. This morning, though, I found a hand-written list, prepared by my wife, entitled "Projects that need to be finished off".

I think she's trying to kill me.