Look for Winks

I’ve had a hard time of things lately. I don’t say this to complain, but more to explain. I hate learning the full meaning of statements like “when it rains it pours.” I’ve felt like the unluckiest person in the world for most of September. And to add insult to injury, any creative writing has been almost non-existent. If I had one word to describe last month and the first week of this one, it would easily be sucks.

HOW DO YOU MAKE IT THROUGH TIMES OF TROUBLE?

If you haven’t had a rains-it-pours spot of life, buck up because it’s coming. But for the rest of us who’ve been through them a time or two, when life is spectacularly sucking, making it through the suckage can be incredibly difficult—especially depending on what’s exactly we’re going through at the time.

Realize that while some things that help others may work for you, at the end of the day you’re completely unique which means there is no one-size-fits-all handbook for handling adversity which means while you can take recommendations figuring out how to get through something is going to take you listening to you.

You may draw strength from your friends, family, your faith, truths you hold sacred—whatever it is, understand this about yourself so when storms come you’ll be ready for them.

Or at least as ready as you can be.

Happily Ever After?

I decided to go with a prompt from the DailyPost today. The prompt:

“And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?

Something my mom always used to say to me that annoyed me to no end as a teenager was that happiness was a choice. My teenager self couldn’t believe that despite all the craziness going on in my life that somehow I could still choose to be happy. Didn’t she know what I was going through? What so-and-so said? What so-and-so did? That I wasn’t this, or I wasn’t that? And so on, and so on.

I think I interpreted happiness as meaning “never feel sadness.” Or “bad things won’t happen to me.” It took me a long time to understand what she actually meant, and even longer to agree with it.

PERSPECTIVE

Something that helped open my eyes was perspective. That is what makes choosing to be happy, despite our circumstances, possible. Sometimes I wish I could give my teenage self the perspective of where I was at that point. That high school ends. That there were so many awesome adventures ahead. That I’m strong enough to overcome any challenge. That’s why they say hindsight is 20/20.

One thing that helps me keep things in perspective is my belief in God. I realize there may be some of you out there who don’t believe in God, and that’s all right. I’m very a much a live-and-let-live person. But my belief helps me and gives me the perspective that hurts are temporary and shows me how to choose happiness rather than let life’s difficulties drag me down to misery.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Try the words of Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

I can’t imagine being locked in a concentration camp, wondering when it might be my turn for extermination. Yet Viktor still had this perspective. Can one really choose happiness in such terrible circumstances?