Introduction.

I could have thought of a snappier title, but simple can sometimes be best.

I once was told I “live a charmed life.”

“Charmed life?”

This struck me as odd.  By my count, rather a significant number of bad things have been known to occur in my particular corner of time and space.  I pointed this fact out to the genleman who had offered his commentary.  “Maybe,” he agreed rather skeptically, “but it all turns out for you.” 

Pardon?

It was not simply my curiosity and/or confusion over his words that stuck with me over the years, but the manner in which he spoke them:  he came across as downright accusatory.  “What did I do?” I wondered periodically, until one day, several years and many relationships after the fact, it struck me:  I lived.  That’s what I did.  “Live.”  As a verb. 

Life is motion.  We move by choosing.  We choose by thinking.  Our thoughts are the charms we apply to our lives.  There is no mystical outside force steering us one way or the other; all of the magic that happens to us or doesn’t is self-perpetuating.  Heavy load to bear?  Consider the weight of the alternative.

In light of that I think, perhaps, that the gentleman who made that observation years ago was right.  I do live a charmed life.  I live.