The blue-print of our lives comes from an energy that has no name and has no shape.
It has never asked for the trappings of ritualised religion.
It has never asked to be worshipped.
It has never asked to have any of its invented names and pronouns referring to it written with capital letters.
This energy for some is called 'god'.
For others, it's called 'soul'.
For others it's called 'karma' while others call it...
whatever they respectfully call it.
If this energy has not asked to be either personified or anthropomorphised - sure signs of human interference in search for that ultimate good but stern father figure - regardless of the sacred documents we link to it, it does however expect us to go forth and multiply...
our heartfelt deeds.
It expects that we make our conscious moments that much more conscious and worthwhile.
In exchange, incremental degrees of personal wellbeing will be eventually added to our lives, all in the fullness of time - it does not run on a bartering model.
We, as a group and as individuals, even as atheists, would stand to benefit a lot more from the content of our lives, if we actively accepted that what keeps us ticking is no more our efforts to lead a healthier lifestyle than that of offering prayers and rituals than the 'satisfying' trappings of success within our social status.
Similarly, it is not being poor or having a penchant for at-risk lifestyles or being trapped in dead-end relationships that cause our demise.
If it were so, rock climbers and deep-sea divers, thrill-seeking folks, food-indulging ones and folks trapped in dysfunctional relationships with self or others would be quickly dispatched to 'the next world', while all millionaires, home-bound folks and 'health-fanatics' would live on to inherit the earth.
Clearly, it is not so.
In the spirit of pointing out what should be obvious to us all, a lovely story of 'good luck' comes to mind: last October, while keen to reveal hidden maritime secrets, and working alongside treasure hunters, Jane [not her real name], a local conservationist, an experienced diver, was attacked by a three meter shark.
Though Jane never caught a glimpse of the creature, it bit her on the thigh and buttocks.
Jane was airlifted back to Australia and the skin grafts eventually reacted as intended.
Thankfully, some three weeks later, at the time of the writing of this article, the young woman is already planning resumption of her lifestyle in the pursuit of all she likes to do.
Sadly for Jane and sadly for our edification, all accounts of the incident, including quotes from her and from her parents, only bear testament to 'bad luck' on the one hand and 'good fortune' on the other.
For them, this random ordeal must be dismissed.
They must 'get over' it as quickly as possible so that each of them can return to their self-focused M.
O.
Sadly again, as in all cases in which 'luck' of any sort is cast as the central purveyor of good and bad tidings, karmically speaking, our resistance to accept a modicum of responsibility for all that befalls us, equates to yet another taylor-made, yet missed, opportunity - the opportunity to learn, grow and evolve beyond the single-minded, Asperger's-like, pursuit of what welike to do or want to do.
When reflection is absent, the understanding of Self is also absent and so is the understanding of one's true personal purpose in this lifetime.
Spoiler ahead:by the time any current challenge is to have been handled correctly from the inside-out, unbeknownst to us, another test is already on its way.
From above to below, from our soul to our consciousness and through our physical body, one thing certain is that, no matter how we choose to see it, the next text will definitely not arrive to us as randomly as a big bird poo falling out of the big blue sky.
Complication:the follow-up test of other tests failed will be harder to overcome than any of the previous ones.
Returning to the personal events befalling Jane, as a means to illustrate the last point made, interestingly, it is worth noting that this young woman had already been

• air-lifted by the navy during gale-force winds and that, on other occasions,
• she is said to have been 'lucky' to weather-out a couple of cyclones while at sea.
  

And now that various BIG opportunities for self-reflection have been missed from the inside-out, it can only be assumed that another challenge is already on its way to Jane.