Turning Crisis into Opportunity

Since I LOVE figure skating and you could always find me at the ice rink in junior high and high school, and in honor of the winter Olympics, please forgive me if I use a tiny little skating metaphor to illustrate a point:

It isn’t how you fall – it’s what you do after you get back up that counts.

So many of us are suffering major life crises right now:  divorce, the death of a parent or another loved one, illness and most commonly job loss.  It seems it is only when we suffer a sudden, unexpected change in our lives that we finally stop and think about where all of this is headed.

A crisis can get our attention in ways nothing else can.  I had to suffer a double whammy.  I lost my husband, my job and almost my home before I finally got the message loud and clear:

YOUR LIFE IS CHANGING NOW IN SOME MAJOR WAYS, SO IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!

There’s something about having no job to go to and no money t0 spend that snaps you to full attention.  It frees you up to do some heavy contemplation on how you ever arrived at this depressing and confusing place.  It also demands that you put quite a bit of thinking into what’s next.  Ah, the gifts of a midlife crisis!

It has admittedly been a painfully slow process for me, but I have finally come to the conclusion that every difficulty or “crisis” in this lifetime, is truly a gift in disguise.  If the crisis did not occur, then we would go merrily on our way assuming that our life is “working” even when it isn’t.  When we have a job, even if we find absolutely no fulfillment in it, we rarely seriously consider the alternatives.  Same with a bad marriage.

It seems for most of us, only a crisis of some sort prompts us to ask the important questions.  What are these?

What did I come here to do?  Am I using my most precious gifts to contribute to the solution to the world’s problems?   Does my marriage nurture me to become my best self, or stifle everything that I am?  Will I ever become who I am inside?

Do I live a life of integrity and respect for my own needs?

Sooner or later these questions need to be addressed.  I would like to encourage you to find the time to answer them sooner rather than later.  Don’t end up at the end of your life wondering where it all went.  Decide what you value and what has meaning for you.  Find a way to live a life you feel proud of and can look back over with satisfaction.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants.                                                    What are you industrious about?  – Henry David Thoreau

Tagged as: crisis and change, divorce as a gift, how to turn a crisis into opportunity, job loss as a gift, why we change