I have been gone for too long,
Life has a way of testing a person’s will. For the past few months, there were many challenges thrown in my direction all at once.
First, it was my spinal arthritis, and thanks to it, I had to quit Muay Thai. Then after 15 years of marriage, my ‘better half’ decided that our personalities clashed and called for a divorce. Before I could fully recover from that shock, my mum fell in the shower one day and landed on her head with a huge bump. Fortunately, there was no internal bleeding, and she was discharged six days later.
And while all these were happening, I had to complete weekly assignments on a course that I was roped in to attend and helped with new roles and responsibilities while my Manager was on hospitalisation leave.
I was tired and overwhelmed. It was a challenging period, to say the least.
Somehow, I knew I would fall badly if I took the toxic route, so I was determined to get myself back on track.
‘One thing at a time, and that was it. I focus on what I need to do, and nothing else matters. So, for example, if I have to complete an assignment, I give it my 100%; if I am doing Yoga, I give my attention only to my breathing and stretching; if I am spending time with my mum, then let that be my only focus. I am sure you get the drift.
But like all solutions to problems, they are often not as straightforward. Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I cannot seemed to focus. I ruminate and break down, but I pick myself up again. As cliché as it may sound, I believed it would only get better. Every time I fail, it takes me a shorter time to get back into the game.
But even if it does not, so what? As Mark Manson so brilliantly put across, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. ” In his article, he wrote how all of us, whether we realised it or not, are making a choice of avoiding or engaging pain all day and every day. We can choose to engage pain by dealing with our problems head-on or avoid them and wish that our lives will always be in rosy hues. It is essential to understand that there will always be pain, disappointments, and frustrations in our lives and we can control them.
Check out his ‘5 Tenets of Negative Self Help’ article.
Mark Manson said, “The aggregation of our choices will determine the quality of our life.” So true.
As it is, life is crazy enough. If we can learn something from life’s inevitable pain, disappointments and frustrations, why let those opportunities slip by?
Embrace them.
