“God's plan, God's plan / I can't do this on my own, ayy, no, ayy / Someone watchin' this shit close, yep, close” —Drake
“Done,” God says and stops watching Drake’s shit close. “Yep. Time to play catch-up.”
God runs down her list of to-dos. She’s watched Drake for a long time and realizing a lot of new the items seem tricky, she inhales sharply: “end violent civil war(s),” “figure out how to stop climate change in casual/mysterious way like when had to kill all dinosaurs,” “end the internet?,” “review notes from editor on Bible 2: How to Lose Weight, Love More and Have Better Sex through Submission to the Will of the Lord.” All seem exhausting.
Drake was simple. God felt like she actually mattered with him. And Drake appreciated her! He even wrote a song about her!
“I don’t want to go from killing it with Drake right into anything too big,” God decides. “We’ll just do something easy.”
So, God turns the gaze of the heavens upon you—a person who is not Drake, not even a rapper, not even popular or important, just you, a person—to help you fulfill your preordained purpose in life. Which is not big. It’s small. Your purpose is simple. God thinks this will be easy.
It is 6:00 a.m. You just woke up. You’re in bed. “Early up,” you whisper to yourself, “I’m going to get after it today.”
“Sick, this person probably doesn’t even need me!” God says to the angel floating beside her. “Knew it was a good idea to focus so much attention on Drake. He couldn’t do it on his own! Remember that Drake line? Sick.”
God had, of late, been saying Drake lines to people and, not casually, mentioning one of his songs was about her. As if this was an excuse for 20 plus years of not paying attention to anything else.
You sit up and start to get out of bed and then a thought stops you: But what is it that I’m supposed to be even “getting” at? What am I doing? Why am I here?
“Uh oh,” God mutters, “an idiot.”
God asks the angel for The Book. The Lord opens the dusty tome labeled: “God’s Plans, Alphabetical.” God flips to D. Drake has a big green checkmark next to the word “mogul/rapper/father.” God turns to the angel, shows him the green checkmark and then tilts her eyebrows as if to say, “Pretty cool, huh?” God makes the angel fist bump. But the angel doesn’t enjoy it because this is just work for the angel, a job.
But then God finds you—a human not from Canada and who cannot do that divinely created non-dance Drake shimmy does in music videos—in the book. She places a finger on your “thing.” Next to your reason for existing the checkmark is not green, it’s grey. God looks up.
You roll over and go back to sleep.
You wake back up at 6:26 a.m. You pick up your phone, check the time. You respond to some text messages. You look at social media.
“Alright, this one’s simple. Let’s just give a little push,” God ordains. “I had to watch close on Drake, probably just the same thing here. Remember that line? Watchin’ this shit close! Yep. I love how he says ‘yep.' Sick.”
God, through the beauty of the universe, places your reason for existing in your mind. In bed, you happen to think for a moment about the very thing God assigned you to do on this earth. The plan floats in, delicately, like a breeze. You picture the life. You see the wisdom of the Lord. You mull it over.
Unlike Drake, you do not accept God’s Plan.
“I’m too good for that,” you conclude.
“Are you fucking kiddi–,” God starts, clenches her fist tight and raises it in the air above her head, and then stops. The angel gives her a look.
Against the wishes of our Lord, you begin imagining other people’s plan for yourself: making lots of money, being an artist that’s also happy, being attractive. None of these are your thing. They are way better than your thing. They are all things God gave to Drake.
“Oh Jesus!” God laments.
Jesus pops his head around the corner and into God’s cloud chamber.
“Sup, pops?” Jesus asks.
“Nothing. Nothing. It’s just an expression” God says. “And aren’t we supposed to be one entity?”
“Oh yeah,” Jesus says and immediately folds into God, becoming the heart and then the Holy Spirit comes in and became God’s shoulders; God then had really beefy shoulders like Dwight Howard and a big heart like Jesus.
At 6:57 you wake up again, pick up your phone, and look at Instagram again.
You see many people doing their thing, some of them special people with stars in God’s ledger; some of them with double stars. You watch everyone fulfill their purposes on Instagram: double-star LeBron James dunks on a one-star member of the Brooklyn Nets, one-star Mark Zuckerberg talks about community to a double-star single dad in Georgia, a no-star high schooler posts a fake Joan Didion quote, and triple-star Drake posts a photo of himself in the studio.
“Just like me,” you think. “Because, I guess, my thing is being special enough to do anything. The hard part, for me, is actually the number of choices I have.”
God gives a sin point to everyone who lived in Silicon Valley and then, frustrated, checks back in on Drake to cheer herself up. She tries to hide her smile, but Drake’s doing something really cool.
“Focus,” she says. She goes back to you.
You’re thinking about what photo to post to help people understand you are special. Indeed, very special, as you’ve decided. But you have not done anything lately. What could you do to get a cool picture, you wonder. Like a photo of you skydiving while recording a podcast? Or you meeting being successful in some way but you present it humbly!? Wait, you say to yourself, you don’t want to rule out the skydiving thing—it’s really cool. How could you make skydiving casual enough to post? That’s the question. That’s what you need to focus on.
As you run this over in our minds, you notice the time. It is 7:45 a.m. You’re going to be late. You shower, eat, and put on clothes. You get into the office at 8:12 a.m.—still unsure which photo would be best to create and show to the world the special piece of you, inside, that defines you and helps you wake up each morning to trudge into work; that gives you meaning and purpose and hope.
“Late,” says the boss; it’s become a catchphrase, no reason to use more than one word.
“Sorry,” you say.
At your desk, you grab headphones and go to Spotify.
“Yeah they wishin' and wishin' and wishin' and wishin' / They wishin' on me, yuh,” you mumble to yourself.
God sags her head.
And you keep singing to yourself: “They gon' tell the story, shit was different with me.”
God's plan fails.