Stability: A Lasting Misnomer
I often hear quite a few people say that having a job makes for stability. This is more so when you have a high-paying white-collar job. It’s as if you could buy anything that you fancy and travel around the world with your family or friends, or even by your lonesome. Your health is assured, too, as you are covered by an insurance that covers any and all medical expenses. Money is not an object; nothing seems to ever get in the way.
However, this is not the case. Sooner or later, time will catch up with you in ways you can never imagine happening. A sudden debilitating illness might come out of the woodwork and all your savings and insurance — if at all — would be depleted; a sudden yet unnoticeable gust might cause a loose iron roofing to fly down on you while talking to a friend on a phone outside your house, causing a major accident or even death; your position in the company is dissolved following a reorganization; a member of your family or a friend might act on a sinister plot to your disadvantage; or an all-too-routinary commute to work may prove to be fateful.
The concept of stability is merely a product of perceived constancy of things that a group of people become used to and share with others. It is a delusive idea people employ to shield themselves from life’s inconsistencies and aberrant nature.
The truth is nobody can ever tell when a seemingly perfect situation can go awry. Many a thing can go out of one’s control in a blink of an eye, regardless of how cautious or careful one may be. Even job stability is nothing but a falsity. One gets a salary regularly as long as he/she is employed and performs based on established metrics. And because of this steady stream of income, he believes he will be fine over the long haul. But an incident in the office — where he throws caution to the wind — could be so damaging that he is out of work the next day.
Another case in point is a healthy-looking, cheerful man who always goes to the gym, eats fruits and vegetables, and sleeps at least eight hours a day. One may think that nothing could go wrong with him, as he follows what health-care experts recommend to live long. But one day, he faints on the way to the gym. He, then, consults a doctor who diagnoses him with leukemia. His family is stunned by this news because nobody in their clan has ever contracted the disease.
Stability is also absent in natural happenings, which deviate from their assumed course. You can see it in a weather pattern being constantly replaced by another, which rattles scientists and weather forecasters. On the surface, a phenomenon may parallel a previous one in its damage and scope. Observers immediately jump to conclusion that the same factors present in the latter brought it. Thereafter, people begin subscribing to the expert’s opinion. Little do they know that the underlying cause of the new event is a far cry from what took place in the past.
Truth be told, nobody can ever tell what the future holds for each of us, and nothing will ever be predictable in life. Whatever is happening to you today, remember that it is not permanent or stable. Only time can tell when and how things will turn out for you. And no matter how much you prepare for the unpredictable or for the unknown by the things within the grasp of your consciousness, there is always at least one thing that is bound to catch you off guard. What is it? Nobody knows.
