Sometimes It Takes….

Sometimes it takes a huge loss to remind you what you care about the most. Many of us, probably most, go about the humdrum of our daily lives without even realizing what is, or at least should be, important to us. We are just too used to trudging through the work week and looking to the weekend for some relief.  And then comes that event that changes everything and shocks us back to show us what is important.

In my college years I made up a placard with the words “Remember the future comes but a day at a time.” Those words were intended to remind me what I was striving so hard to accomplish. I was working a forty day week while attending college full-time. It was a struggle that sometimes just drained me. With the help of those words I managed to survive those years.

It was only later that I realized that these words had a two-sided message. Too many of us, me included, spend too much time dreaming of the future and too little time living in the present. We simply let life get away from us. Time goes by with little accomplished, at least little of what we deem important. And then comes that earth-shaking event….

Sometimes you find yourself becoming stronger as a result. Wiser better able to tackle the next big thing that comes along. You are jolted out of your complacency. You put your life back into perspective of what is important and move on from there.  Sometimes but not always.  Sometimes we fall further into a trap and it swallows us.

There are many people who live the rest of their lives with the trauma of that one huge event. Many in my generation continue to live with the trauma of Vietnam. They can’t shake those years of almost fifty years ago.  I’m sure that the current generation has their share of kids traumatized by this century’s wars. PTSD just won’t let go of them. They will continue to see the Iraq tree and basically ignore all the other trees in their forest.  We need to do whatever we can to help them find their way back into the world. Too many lives are wasted because of our needless wars.

Sometimes you have a huge shock in your life make you change for the better. When I went deaf more than twenty-five years ago I was sure that it was pretty much the end of my world as I knew it.  I thank God for the supporting wife and work colleagues who helped me through those very rough years.  In reality I firmly came to really understand how much the love of my life cared for me. In my work life with the support of others I moved from circuit design to software development It was then that I found out that is where I should have been my whole work life. I was just surviving before but I flourished in my new occupation.

Don’t let yourself or anyone you know get swallowed up by a huge loss…..