Facing the changes ahead. . .with a cheeseburger?

                I remember standing before the large grandfather clock. Its round gold disk swung all the way to the left, hung for a second, and then swung all the way to the right, to hang until gravity pulled it once more to the left. 
                Now, as I stand here before the events in both my own life and the world’s, watching with fascination and sometimes horror, I realize a great golden pendulum is at work.  Events will swing slowly in one direction, speeding up until a crisis explodes , and then dropping once more toward the center, not to end there in a sort of comforting balance, but instead to swing more and more quickly toward crisis in the OTHER direction.
              Just observe your own life. Just when you think everything is going just fine, life starts slipping past that center balance point to move more and more quickly to a ‘crisis’. In other words, we go as far as we can go in once direction until we are shown gently or catastrophically that we need to make a change.  Didn’t you want to do everything differently than your parents when you were a teen-ager? And as a generation we actually try to do that. One generation too inhibited? The next will attempt shock and rebellion. That generation too free spirited? The next will pull back, stick up their collective noses and try for ‘proper’.
                Boy those fast food cheeseburgers and fries were the greatest new adventure. Great taste, fun sharing at the corner fast food joint. Easy meals for parents who worked with kids who need lots of calories to grow, play and work with. And the pendulum began to swing. Now we have a generation of overweight adults who have forgotten how to cook and prepare good food, and a generation of children who for the first time in fifty years will not live as long as their grandparents! But wait, the fast food places are offering more and more salads and low fat options, and the pendulum is slowing starting to swing back to center.
                But through all this, I take heart in remembering all these are simply  life opportunities to try something until I notice it doesn’t work, and then change what I need to and get back to balance. So, I  calmly observe the natural flow of the pendulum in nature and world events and do the best I can to change what is right in front of me.
                Hmm…cheeseburger or the salad with grilled chicken. . let me think.