Monday Monday, so good to me,

Monday Monday, so good to me,

Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be
Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Oh, those Mamas and Papas - they're words just get into my head and then what? I don't really have this feeling about Monday. No one, that I can think of, has left me on a Monday. I think what catches me is the word 'guarantee'. What an odd word.

Love guarantee - we absolutely guarantee that your love will be reciprocated without impunity or immunity for 90 days/the length of the marriage/ or forever - whichever comes first. All that you hope , that your intended goodness and or accessibility to you, is absolutely guaranteed with full satisfaction or your heart back.

Yeah, right. We live in a very bizarre world - a world where we are encouraged to believe that we have a right to happiness. You Yanks even put the pursuit of it in your most important document. The strange thing, as I see it, is that the pursuit of happiness is what leads to unhappiness. If we know that everything is fleeting, impermanent and perhaps not even real (whatever that means) then why are we hell bent on courting sadness by pretending that our friends are forever, our marriages last until death, our stocks are with upstanding companies that wouldn't think of rooking us, our duly elected officials are only interested in our well-being, and so on. I'm not advocating cynical thoughts here either - in case that's what you're thinking. I've got my Pollyanna badge and wear it proudly - it is just that stupid 'guarantee' word.

Let's see if we can get rid of it. When the person at the travel agency guarantees us the best trip we've ever had for the lowest price - let's stop her or him right there - "Sweetheart," we'll begin, "don't do it. Let's just try and have a reasonably good time here - you do your best and that will be great. If I wanted a guarantee I wouldn't travel because I'm absolutely guaranteed to have something go awry on any trip. I insist on it."

The only thing that I can imagine being guaranteed is that we are absolutely guaranteed to move through endless cycles - whether they are the gloriousness of today's spring weather (yes - finally!) that will turn to nice hot summer days, beautiful brisk autumn ones and then back into winter's chill - or the cycle of love, of the body holding out, of the eggs and chicks and hens and eggs and chicks - well it is all the same, really.

How might this sentiment work as a writer? Well, when I think that if I work really hard I will be guaranteed with success. I know this isn't true. The only guarantee that I can make is to myself - I guarantee that I want to write no matter what the outcome. That I can live with.

How about you? Are you willing to give up the illusion of the guarantee for  the cycle of impermanence? It is genuinely liberating.