What do you and I mean when we say "all things considered?"
The weather, we say, is good, "all things considered;" a new car, we say, isn't bad, "all things considered;" a dinner, a movie, a vacation, a job, a new house, a day of the week, a month of the year, a year, a decade, an enemy, a friend, a family member, a city, a town, an old pair of shoes, all can be described with the words: "all things considered."
But what do we really mean?
Do we mean "all things considered" when we say "all things considered?" No. We mean the opposite. When we say: nice day, week, husband, wife, daughter, son, pair of shoes, "all things considered," we mean in spite of the weather, their criminal conviction, their tendency to lie, to tell the truth, to sell drugs, to buy shoes, or to hurt our feet. We mean to say all things not considered, and we mean to say we have considered those other things, too.
"All things considered" is a simple acknowledgment of the fact that life is not simple, that true perfection in life is nonexistent, that things might be better or worse for others, maybe most others, that things might be better for us, maybe a lot better, maybe a lot worse, but, given all of these irrefutable facts of which we acknowledge the absolute truth, we are accepting, no, pleased, no, thrilled, no, overjoyed with the current state of our life, the weather, this day, this pair of shoes, or whatever - all things considered - and we are looking forward to what tomorrow may bring.
Unless tomorrow brings a presidential election, an armed conflict overseas (whether or not we are a combatant), a lawsuit (in which we are a named party), a mediation conference (in which we may be required to acknowledge, as we already do in every other aspect of our lives, that certain facts take precedence over certain other facts), or any other circumstance in which we choose to pretend that all facts are created equal and, frankly, must all be considered.
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