I have learned that no matter how bad things are, you can always
make things worse. If pain is inevitable, then misery is optional. Pain like
suffering comes unbidden. But they often do not stay for long. Once the bad
news is announced, or the bad event comes, they like messengers take their
leave. They bid you farewell. They have done their part. Their work is
complete. The rest is up to you. In their departure, what is often left behind
is either misery or hope, helplessness or resilience, resignation or
resolution.
I believe a time is given for mourning. A time for reflection. A
time for grieve. After that, it's time for recovery. You can either make it
better or make it worse. You can ruminate until it hurts. You can sleep all day
and refuse to move a muscle. You can mope and sulk to attract sympathy and
pity. You can play the victim and soak up the attention. You can make it worse
by refusing to make it better. Your choice counts. Your response is invaluable.
Your resolve matters.
When you have hit rock bottom, it is often said that the only
way to go is up. But many are forgetting that rock bottom is an insidious place
of false comfort too. Many will seek solace in staying down instead of drawing
hope in standing up. To many, wallowing in the "rock bottom" is a
form of negative rejuvenation where hopelessness and helplessness take turn to
demoralize the victim further in a vicious cycle of restless desolation.
So, if the mother of invention is necessity, then the mother of
encouragement is proactivity. We take control of the messiness in our life and
set things right once again. It is a tough undertaking no doubt but every step
forward is nevertheless a step that deeply empowers. What makes the crucial
difference is a choice invested to change our life for the better. The changes
may be small, and even seemingly insignificant, but the circumstantial forces
rallied around that one act of proactivity contain the power to break down many
walls that conspire to cage us in.
Let me end with the observation of Viktor Frankl, a survivor of
the Nazi occupation, in his bestseller Man's Search for Meaning, "We who
lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts
comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been
few in numbers, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken
from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's
attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way."
So, times may indeed be
bad, no sweat. You are there to make it better. Cheerz.
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