All Is For The Best

—It is clear, said he, that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end. . . . . Consequently, those who say everything is well are uttering mere stupidities; they should say everything is for the best.
-Dr. Pangloss in Candide by Voltaire

Today I'd like to share with you one of the ways I reset my frame of reference when things in my life aren't going my way or when the monotony of day to day living starts to get me down.*
If you could define the crux of the logical fallacy in many religions it would be what we often refer to as the human condition.  If god is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving - why does pain and suffering persist in the world?  Surely one of those three attributes of god is incorrect.  For the nonreligious the closely related question concerns our purpose here on earth.  We as humans would like to assign value to our life among the chaos.  Why folks chose to go on living through unbearable circumstances?  To cling to life when it might be easier to lay down arms and give up?
In the 1700's a popular French philosopher named Liebniz proposed that since god is all knowing, all powerful and all loving it only stands to reason that this world - the one we live in - is the best of all possible worlds.  Things literally could not get any better than they are right now.  That particular theory played very well with the folks in power in France at the time as you might well imagine.
It did not play well with Voltaire who subsequently wrote an anonymous pamphlet called "Candide" or "Optimism" which was a satirical look at Leibnizian optimism.  Candide is the hero of our story and begins is life in relative comfort and taught Leibniz by a certain Dr. Pangloss.  I won't write you a book report, but for a variety of reasons Candide's life turns from mediocre to horrible in a few short pages.  He is made to suffer through war, famine and earthquake.  His beloved is raped and nearly killed.  His tutor is horribly maimed by syphilis. Characters thought to be dead reappear later in the story but are made old, scarred, poor and miserable by the life that circumstance has forced them to live.
In the middle of this narrative Voltaire allows Candide to escape.  For once, chance brings him good fortune and he finds himself in the mythical El Dorado.  Streets are indeed paved with gold.  Everyone is well fed, happy, healthy, wealthy and charitable.  The side trip allows Voltaire to say "look - if this world is the best world that an all powerful god can create why is it that I, Voltaire, can think of something better?"  Foolishly - Candide chooses to leave El Dorado taking with him as much wealth as he believes he can.  This is human nature at its most predictable.  To be wealthy is not enough - we invariably want to be wealthier than those around us.
Now back in the real world Candide loses all of his fortune, is reunited with his beloved only to realize that she is now ugly, maimed and kind of a bitch.  He finds himself living out his days in Turkey with the miserable characters of his life, arguing about philosophy and living in abject poverty.
(are you ready for the paradigm shift now?  I know it's been kind of rough up until here.  Thanks for sticking with me.)
One day, Candide happens across a man who alone of all the people he has met in his travels is not miserable.  He lives in a decent house with a decent garden and a decent family.  He welcomes Candide and his friends to dine with him as a matter of hospitality.  Naturally, Candide asks about the philosophy by which this man lives.  Surely he must believe that he lives in the best of all possible worlds?  But the man will have none of this talk.  He sends Candide away.
The incident shakes Candide out of his philosophical reverie.  He takes stock of his current situation and sees that he too can have a garden.  His beloved can make crafts and sell them.  In fact, everyone in his home has a skill or trade that's of value.  Their life improves and they no longer bicker but simply see their life as it is, work hard and tend to their garden.
Why do I like this story?  First the obvious:  I love any story where the solution to the given problem is to work hard.  If you haven't figured that out yet then I'm guessing you've never read anything I've written here.  But the less obvious?  I think we hear a lot in modern living about how things must not be as bad as they seem.  We have a reflexive desire to make things 'be OK.'  You know what?  Sometimes things aren't OK.  Sometimes life hands you a shitty deck of cards.  Every waking moment is a moment of hell for someone here on earth.  War, pestilence, famine and disaster prevail over the lives of millions and global warming is probably going to kill off humanity in the long run.
The question isn't whether things are OK.  The question is how you're going to decide to live in spite of all that.
Candide decided to take in his surroundings, see what was real and then work hard and tend his garden.  When I have days of being overwhelmed by various forces I cannot control, I try to do the same.

*I learned everything I say here in a college philosophy course and hope somehow that the naysayers of higher education and the humanities in particular might consider intangibles such as these before spouting off about the lack of value of a higher education in liberal arts.
<posted on 1.31.14>