I wonder why most of us only see the pearl of wisdom in a life experience long after the actual experience has passed. During the struggle, the very tough time that requires all of our internal resources, we usually only feel challenged and discouraged. It is only later, if ever, that we see the lesson or reward from our suffering.
This morning I was thinking about the bad times back in 2004 when I felt entirely overwhelmed with my situation. Alone and unemployed for months, I saw no even dim prospects of anything good ever happening to me again. I remember going to talk to my Unitarian pastor for some sort of counseling, only because she was free and I was desperate! I remember saying to her, “I just need one thing to go right!” I was looking for ANY sign that my life could eventually change for the better.
It was only a year or two later, after I met Mike and felt loved, safe and secure again, that I could look back and see my own process. This was the reward or learning part of my transformation from hopelessness to acceptance, where I confronted the fact that life is and will continue to be unpredictable and ever changing, what I now call the learning cycle of life. From this I learned to try and always give myself love and compassion when I feel challenged, while also trying to share that gift with others.
We are all so very human, not the supernatural action figures we wish we were. We actually control so very little of what happens to us, and yet we tend to blame ourselves for all of it. If we think about it for even a moment, we see how impermanent it all is, our time here, our relationships, our thoughts and feelings. If we are lucky, aging gives us this added perspective which can be scary, but also somehow reassuring.
Each morning we are born again.
What we do today is what matters most.
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I am experiencing a traumatic challenge right now (after being out of work for a long time, no health insurance and re-single for years) and am still amazed at how I am handling it. In years past I would quickly find myself in that helpless, life ain’t fair, high drama, victim state of mind. This time I seem to be watching it unfold before me with acceptance and presence of mind. This too shall pass. If you can’t enjoy the experience then please don’t lose the lesson. And if the lesson isn’t clear or immediately forthcoming, don’t fret, sometimes it’s enough to just ponder the unfathomable. I too shall rise above this. I am more than this.
Good for you Brad! I am also happy to see how reassuring “This too shall pass.” can be at times. Life will go on being life, it’s how you choose to respond to it all that counts!