Perhaps it is because we are all pursuing happiness with such great abandon and fervor that we often don’t stop for those around us who are feeling sad. Or perhaps we are sad ourselves and no one has noticed or stopped by to ask. It has been a tough spring in central Texas for colleagues and friends who are facing transitions because change has been forced on them by the inevitability of death or the capriciousness of life. We would always want things to stay the same: same job, same family, same friends, same house, same stuff, same car, same pets. Yet, we know that the only thing that does not change is change itself. Even death and taxes change–they may be inevitable, but they do change. So a grandparent dies, or a church member, or people take a new job and move, a business closes and you’re out of job, a car accident suddenly ends the life of a young one. I should be more callous and just call it “life.” After fifty-three years you would think I would be a little less emotional, more unfeeling, harder, cynical, and in many ways I am: I understand the serendipitous nature of chance, the independence of the event, and the unpredictability of real life. We live under the illusion that life is one huge continuous thread of events, that continuity exists, and that we can live that single, unbroken thread of verisimilitude which is our mundane existence. Life is more like a mirror that has fallen out of its frame and shattered into a million little discontinuous fragments, which, as we stare into them, reflect back just a tiny piece of our image. Life is not linear; it is discontinuous, fragmented, broken, and unfinished. The result of this existential angst is often times a profound sadness about the changing world, over which we have no control. Perhaps that is our greatest failing as humans: we think that we control our destinies, have a perfect life, perfect family, perfect house, perfect car, perfect children, never suffer a loss. Yet, nowhere is it written that real life has anything to do with the pursuit of happiness, that we can control anything, that there is meaning where there really is none, that we can shield ourselves against loss. Perhaps only the nihilists say such nonsense, but I would postulate that most unhappiness is the direct result of the dark surprises that life is constantly throwing at the players in this drama-tragedy-absurd-satire-parody of life. We are unhappy because of change, because our expectations for our lives are not being met, because our needs are not being met. At some point I should use the word “fair,” but it wouldn’t be appropriate in this context. Life is always what you make of it–sad, happy, or indifferent, but we are never in control.