The Value Of “S**t Happens”

Those of us in Gen-X were blessed with the following mottos: “Shit happens,” and “Life sucks, and then you die.”

People confuse those mottos with apathy, but the truth is that they prepared us for real life.

I would go so far as to say that knowing that “life sucks” and “shit happens” is a kind of superpower.

Here’s how it works…

Thanks to that mindset, we in Gen-X have no sense of entitlement, no lofty expectations, and no toxic belief that we’re special and that life should be easy—or that when life isn’t easy, that we’re helpless victims of someone else.

As we took care of ourselves after school, took care of our younger siblings, made our own meals, did our own laundry, worked crummy after-school jobs, and drove unreliable third-hand clunkers, we learned early on that life was full of setbacks and disappointment, and that nobody would give us anything because we weren’t owed anything.

This meant that we learned to appreciate what we did have (because we worked for it) and understood that life was what WE made it and that obstacles and defeats are simply a part of life. This shielded us from the narcissism that poisons people with the belief that they are helpless victims, which in turn shielded us from the frustration and despair bred by that sense of helplessness that comes from the stupid belief that you’re special and deserve everything you want.

When things fail to go our way, well …so what? After all, “life sucks.” So, yeah, it rolls off our backs. Why? Because when you already know that life’s default position is “shit happens,” you’re liberated by that knowledge. But then, because we also know that there are no handouts, we try again, and then again, and if necessary, we try one more time.

Those struggles gave us wisdom, and through that wisdom, we learned to appreciate the simple things, the important things, what we did have, and those moments when life doesn’t suck.

Thank heaven, no one told us we were special or amazing or that we deserve it all and that the government should take care of us.

Thank heaven, no one handed us a trophy just because.

Instead, we made peace with our limitations and failures, learned to gut it out, obtained the wisdom to not fret over what we couldn’t control, and to take responsibility for what we could.

And that’s where it all came together — the “making peace” part, I mean. You see, that’s the key to a good life. Making peace with reality (especially when you’re still in high school) is a sort of protective armor. Accepting the world as it is, life as it comes, and people for who they are is a gift you give yourself because with that acceptance comes the key to a happy life: peace of mind and gratitude.

“Life sucks and then you die?”

“Shit happens?”

I wouldn’t have it any other way.