It's October, 2008 a time of uncertain, doom and gloom for many caused in part by the actual events effecting the economy including the bank real estate secondary loan debacle, a significant corporate debt overload and a waning economy. The media, as usual, puts a laser focus on every piece of negativity it can find and acts as alarmist and doomsday chronicler in predicting the dourest outcomes and a bleak future for all. I know that many people feel helpless and hopeless in the face of such negative circumstances yet Optimism and Hope is the only way out of our situation. Starting with the principal that you must first believe it to achieve it and understand that each one of us is responsible for our own situation the question is how do you react to bad news, tragic events, loss of equity, a home, a car, savings or a life? It has been said, and I truly believe this, that the quality of a man's life is not about what happens to him but about how he reacts to whatever happens to him. Its about choice. The choices are endless. You can jump out the window. You can laugh. You can cry. You can give up. You can find the opportunities amongst the wreckage. You can speak words to yourself of discouragement. You can speak words of belief, "can do" and encouragement to yourself and others. You can dwell on yourself, play "poor me" seek sympathy or you can express gratitude for the talents and gifts that you have and begin, each day, anew with ambition and strategy and energy and effort. In times like these leaders don't cave in to the discouragement of the masses. Leaders give hope and encourage others to take action, be positive and find the greatness within themselves. It is times like these when we see what a man is made of and when character is made. Take a moment to encourage someone. Help lighten their day. Help them see the hidden opportunities that are readily available in a seemingly impossible situation. Most of all be thankful for the lessons of these difficult moments, they too shall pass, and for the purpose that they serve then follow your heart to the light.
2 comments:
Once upon a time, I had the best year of my life which was also the worst year of my life. (I will now mention how much I love "A Tale of Two Cities" - as I read every word of it out loud to my daughters.) There was a year in my life when I needed more than anything to have the Atlantic Ocean between my husband and myself and I got it - my sabbatical, my year in France. My daughters and I left our apartment in New York and embarked on a veritable adventure. Justine and Janine were respectively 6 & 4 years old when we went to live in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France where they were promptly enrolled in the local school. In case you don't know this, France is populated with a fair number of Cambodians who fled the genocide in their country. We conveniently alighted on the doorstep of a Cambodian classmate of my husband's from the Lycee Descartes de Phnom Penh. Khema and her daughter Axelle welcomed us and we began the most special experience I have ever lived.
The prelude to this departure was filled with months of depression, gloomy prognosis, not to mention debilitating migraines. What to do - where to go - which way out ? How did I ever come up with this idea to go to France? How did he ever agree to send us there? I will never know but I must thank the hubby for having the generosity to make it happen. He got back at me years later but who could have foretold? Of course, I was warned sternly by the parentals that I was running away from my problems and perhaps I was to a degree. However, the south of France is an excellent place to run. Sometimes in our moments of deepest despair we can have moments of clarity and this was such with my decision to orientate myself towards a place I loved - France.
This year of separation was not, of course, an easy one as my life was out of balance which also included that of my daughters. However, living in France showed me a way towards optimism and a reason to get up each morning, if only to master the language. I rekindled a faint hope for some future, limited as it was to planning the numerous visits of family and friends. This proves the adage that through distraction we forget to a degree about our pain, a concept used in childbirth. During this year, I travelled a significant portion of the south of France, owned a vehicle, made many friends and learned that you might some day take me out of France but France would never leave me. To this day, I recall that terribly and significantly difficult year with great fondness as one of the most memorable moments spent with my daughters. It became a year filled with joy because I had some prior moment of prescience to move towards my ray of light.
Or course, my life didn't quite straighten out nicely as it would in the movie version. That I didn't divorce at that moment in time was a critical mistake. Perhaps I wanted to still be hopeful in my marriage as misplaced as that sentiment appears now in all its glaring clarity. Once again as with the concept of persistence, I got things wrong, backwards in fact. Despite being periodically depressed, during my marriage I was able to maintain a strong glimmer of optimism and harbor the idea that all was not hopeless. I finally learned that it had been erroneous to hold on to false optimism in the face of a greater reality that my marriage was not salvageable. That could be described as misplaced optimism. Alternately when I was divorcing, while everyone was bombarding me with how optimistic my future would finally be, I only saw the hopelessness of my life situation. This highlights the delicate balance of hope and optimism in the face of our challenges. It might help us to navigate better through our challenges by both following our north star and trying to come to terms with a judicious and appropriate application of hope & optimism in the face of reality.
cont'd....
In the end, I experienced a spectacularly wonderful year that no one can ever take from me or my daughters. It changed us all for the better. So, in the end, our trials and tribulations can be instructive and have the capacity to bring great joy amid great pain.
Post a Comment