Life is not what will be will be. Not unless we let it be.

​There's a young lady who lives in the apartment next to me. Many mornings when I come back from my run she's standing outside watching over her two dogs as they do their morning dog stuff.

We chat. I think we both value those chats.

There's immeasurable hope and life in college-age kids. I value being in the presence of that life.

I think she values hearing the 'been there done that' of my more experienced life. Especially the mistakes I've made on the road to more experienced.

Yesterday she was telling me about this 'great job' she interviewed for. "I'll never get the job," she told me.

I asked her why.

She said, "It just seems like the job is way over my head. I don't think I'm qualified."

Then she said a phrase that makes me cringe these days. It made me cringe to hear her say it; it makes me cringe to think about how often I used to think it.

She said, "but I guess what will be will be."

I know she felt my cringe. I turned on her like an angry mix of friend and dad and coach.

I asked her, "did you interview for that job?"

Yes, she said.

I asked her, "did you give it everything you had to prepare for that interview? Did you answer all of their questions with a giant heart and with everything you knew?"

Yes, she said.

"Then you are no longer allowed to say whether or not your qualified," I told her. "That's their job now."

And because you showed up and gave it your all, I told her, your life isn't about 'what will be will be.' Your life is about making life be what you imagine and dream it to be.

For sure, there are some things in life that will just be. We clearly don't have much say over viruses and hurricanes. But that doesn't mean we need to dive headfirst into a philosophy that just accepts what will be will be.

I've lived life under that philosophy. And some of the things I came to accept I would never allow my boys to just accept. I would never allow them to accept them without a fight, without interjecting a little of what they want life to be into the equation.

When you decide you're going to make life be what you want it to be, it doesn't always work out. But when it doesn't, you usually pick up a plan B or a plan C along the way - often plans that are better than the one you were trying to pull off in the first place.

Life feels like you have a little say in it.

But when you just let life be what life will be, you absorb life. Day after day you take what it offers. Which really, that starts to feel more like you're being pummeled by life, not like you're absorbing it.

Life will not just be what life will be.

Not unless you let it be.