It was a drubbing of the sort that awakens you to the fact that life is not obliged to work out as you had planned.
When I went to Australia at New Year, I loaded up a ton of iDevices with auditory entertainment and ended up listening to about 2 hours of Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, written before he was the first African American President of the United States (and fifth youngest to be elected). More on the book at a later date (suffice to say, well-written, read by the author, and a solid introduction to US politics). I noted a quote mid jet-lag, 43-hour-trip, in-the-back-of-a-bus-swinging-around-the-Kiama-bends-at-100-kph…
It was a drubbing of the sort that awakens you to the fact that life is not obliged to work out as you had planned.
Now I look back on it, it’s not that exciting a quote. But there was something in the sentiment – that life owes you nothing – that rang a bell with me.
Please do tell us more about it! I’ve been thinking about reading it and holding off partly because I wasn’t sure how much it would resonate with a non-USian (and also because my reading list is approaching a new record length) – is it worth it?
I quite enjoyed it – I think I will give it 07/10 overall. I loved hearing it read by the author; there’s something pretty cool about POTUS personally delivering his book into your ears (sort of). I didn’t find it too USish; the few things that bugged me were that it became slightly too much like a political manifesto (duh)… somehow it was too polished? Not sure. But *definitely* worth it.
That quote is oh so true, but sometimes that’s a good thing because our plans may not be what’s best for us…
Definitely. There is a quote about “while men plan, gods laugh” – can’t find the right one because Google is not working (!) – but it’s totally true.