“Life consists of a series of events.”
“You must not let what happens to you determine your life.”
It is between these different yet equally important (to
quote Law & Order) statements that I have found my thoughts drifting the
last couple of weeks. I almost want to start with: “It’s been a month since my
last confession…” as it has been SUCH a long time that I haven’t gotten to
writing…exactly because of those types of events that make up your life…
The last three months have been intense (bordering on insanity) to say the least – my mom was recovering from her third back-operation, so I had to try and master the art of working full-time and taking care of her full-time. And then, four days after getting the all clear at her 12-week check-up, she falls and breaks her hip. And now it’s the whole extreme rigmarole all over again…except this time having ambulances, rushed prep and no ability to plan thrown into the mix as well…and that’s just me, a spectator of sorts.
That’s not considering my mom’s feelings – her last couple of years have consisted of quite a few series’ of unfortunate events, which has led her to question the sense of such a life quite a few times. Something I cannot blame her for…in fact, anything but. For it is almost impossible to not look at your life sometimes and wonder. Especially when you’ve had a string of misfortunes…when you start wondering if your life is actually just one big ironic cruel joke, for you cannot see the sense in the things happening to you. And it’s not just my mother…or me…I know so many people who have gone through/are living that very same rollercoaster-ride. Who are at that point of screaming: “Please! Can’t enough be enough already?! I can’t take any more!”
For it is difficult bordering on impossible to go through life without the things happening to us and around us affecting our thoughts, our emotions…our quality of life, so to speak. But then there are those sayings that rally us to not let what happens to us become us. How do we do that? By being those robot-like people with empty eyes and skull-like grins? By going through life “closed off” from the world and ourselves? By putting on our “happy face” every day, always saying: “it’s going fantastic”, no matter what atomic bomb might have exploded in our life? Is this what is asked of us? Is that the only alternative to being tossed around mercilessly by everything that happens to us...mostly on a Tuesday afternoon when we least expect it? Is this the only way to “survive” life? Are we meant to only survive?
And so I did what I normally do in situations like these – other than think about it incessantly. I turned to the thoughts and experiences of “old friends”, starting with the man who gave to us “The Little Prince”, Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love's opposite.” “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” - Aeschylus “The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.” - Tony Robbins
This made me realise that, when thinking about life and about living
it successfully and (therefore) meaningfully, I shouldn’t get stuck on
“events”. Wondering about the “events” of our lives – especially the difficult
and painful ones - make it sound like we believe our lives to have had a different
and better plan, which has now been interfered with. So then it’s not really
about whether “events” can and/or should shape our lives, but rather about what
we believe our lives ought to be. And I realise that I unwittingly fall
into the trap of thinking that life is supposed to be mostly smooth sailing,
which causes me to fall apart every time a storm comes (and boy, can it be
stormy!). Is this the same as saying that we should be unfeeling rocks who are
never affected by anything around us? No. Just that we should adjust our view
of life and the events that shape it a little. “Pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional.” - M. Kathleen Casey “A bend in the road is not the end of the road...unless you fail to make
the turn.” - Author Unknown
We should not be wondering about whether or not there will be bumps in the road, ups and downs on the journey and tragedy around some corners. We should expect them as part of our being alive and being in this world. We should be open about their coming, and willing to rely on others for the help we need. For then these "events" cannot shatter us. They cannot empty us. They can only open us up to let out more of the light we are filled with. "Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." - Joseph Campbell
