Can you ever truly say that you are ready? What does it mean to be ready? I thought, I always thought, it means that you have prepared for scenarios. You have practiced, trained for what is coming. Yet, what is coming?

Life, never comes in a straight line. When has a significant event in your life ever been something you can practice for? Everything, despite lessons from history, is unique when it occurs. As they say, “the only constant is change”. A reinterpretation, recombination, reformation of what we already know leads to something unexpected. Sometimes, you really do encounter something you never have before. I know I have many times. (Am I lucky or unlucky?) So how can you be ready?

Perhaps being ready is a mindset. It means you recognize you are unready but you have the ability to adjust accordingly. Yet, how do you know you have the ability to adjust to something you have never encountered before?

Maybe, we are all and always unready. Ready is just a framework in hindsight. When you successfully overcome an obstacle or a challenge, you look back and think, this is what I had and that is why I succeed. Therefore, I was ready.

Is being ready just a lie we tell ourselves because we need something to frame the chaos of our lives?

In the context of my own life, I don’t think I was ever ready for anything even though I have managed to survive so far. The only thing I had going for me was the ability to remain somewhat calm under pressure and to force myself to find ways out of corners and dead ends. I don’t think I have actually succeeded in anything, given where I am today.

Instead of being ready, maybe my unreadiness is why I’m stumbling through life. Despite my stubbornness, or rather bone headedness, a series of accidental fortunes has pulled me enough to still be at the starting line instead of going straight to the bench or even out of the stadium.

I’m not sure. How do you ready yourself for life? How do you know?