PERPETUAL PREPARATION

We prepare to prepare to prepare to prepare.  Birth is preparation for Pre-K is preparation for kindergarten is preparation for grade school is preparation for junior high school is preparation for high school is preparation for college is preparation for a job is preparation for promotions is preparation for a family, car, and house, is preparation for retirement is preparation for death is preparation for rebirth is preparation for Pre-K, etc.

We never actually finish anything, only apparently.  The events of our lives are like steppingstones across a pond.  Each stone is a completion in a sense, in as much as it is a landing spot, but once reached, that landing spot anticipates the next landing spot; when we reach a stone we don’t just stand there, this is to say.   Indeed, we are ready for, are prepared for, the next stone.

Our assumption is that there is something worthwhile at the end of this line of steppingstones, some grand reward, some payoff, some pot of gold.  Particularly when we are old and facing death the matter occurs to us.  Surely we say, as we look back over our lives, back over our own particular line of stones, it has not all been for naught. 
 
The good news is that, no, it has not all been for nothing.  This much we sense.  The bad news is that we do not know when, or if even, we will know what the payoff is.  We will be prepared, though.