What then did Rufus say to him? "If you choose that as the heavier misfortune, what a foolish choice to make! But if as the lighter, who has given you the choice? Are you not willing to train yourself to be satisfied with what has been given you?"
I easily resort to a sort of bargaining, a crutch I imagine many of us will fall back on to varying degrees, where the appearance of inconvenience or conflict leads me to set the conditions for a resolution on my own terms.
“Almighty God, if only You give me this, I promise I will do that!”
“Bring her back to me, and then I will always love her!”
“I will sacrifice anything else to be freed from this pain!”
It makes a sort of sense in the heat of the moment, but it seems rather petty and arrogant if I bother to reflect.
If something is already right to do, why should it matter under what sort of circumstances I choose to do it? If I truly love her, why do I demand that she love me? Will I even trade in my very conscience for a reprieve from suffering?
It isn’t my place to decide what will happen to me, when it will happen to me, or how it will happen to me. It is my place to make something good of myself in the face of whatever happens to me.
Hypothetical musings about how the world could play itself out are all nice and well, but there is no negotiating with the order of Nature. She knows what she must do, and she asks very little of me, just to manage what I must do.
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