One of my favorite sayings in life is "shit happens". People who know me have heard me say it often. And I've advised people starting with that. I remember the first time I saw a T-Shirt with the words "SHIT HAPPENS". I was a kid in New York and I didn't understand what it meant. But then I grew up and started hearing people cuss and say "Shit!" whenever something bad happened. Or some said "Oh shit!" whenever they made something bad or a mistake or where in the receiveing end of something bad. So shit is something bad and you say shit or shit comes to mind whenever something bad happens.
Then one day I had a philosophical epiphany watching the movie, Forrest Gump. It was the scene where Forrest was running from his problems and a guy asks him about an idea for a bumper sticker and suddenly runs into a pile of shit and Forrest tells him, "It happens". That days I really understood the philosophical underpinnings of shit.
Shit. It's everywhere. We usually don't think of it because who likes to think about shit. We are reminded of it when we have to go to the potty but just don't think about it anymore once it is flushed. But shit happens regularly. Although for some people regularity is a problem but you get the idea.
Shit is something we don't want to deal with. But it is something that we can't escape. We are full of it and yet we don't want to have anything to do with it. There are people who look at their creation after leaving it in the porcelain tomb and some don't look at it. But no matter what you do that shit is yours and it came from you.
Metaphorically, shit is any situation in life that is inconvenient or uncomfortable. I remember this old guy who was my friend who always said, "Problems never end, they are always there." And I thought to myself "Substitute the word 'problems' for 'shit' and it made more sense.
Shit can happen to us in the form of an unexpected situation like your car breaking down. Most of the time shit happens this way. I wish life was more like a scripted drama, but life is not like that and shit happens.
There are people who are like monkeys and like to throw their shit at others. So sometimes shit that comes your way is intentional. That's another way shit happens.
Then there the regular shit like work, family, pending tasks and routines. That's regular shit you can't avoid but it happens.
I remember the day I was requested to submit a poop sample for a test. I thought to myself "People look at poop for a living?" Well in the lab context they look at other things too. But in the life context there are people who analyze other people's shit. They are called psychologists. I've seen a couple of those in my life. It's good to take a look at your shit and learn from it.
No matter how hard you try shit happens and it will keep happening. But shit ain't that bad. Shit can be used for fertilizing and there are countries where they collect shit and store it to collect the methane gas and use it to fuel vehicles. There is a prefecture in Japan using animal and human shit to power farms. So shit can sometimes be useful.
Let's accept it. Shit happens and we have to deal with it. It's up to us how we handle it and what we make of it. Shit happens but life goes on.
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