Actress Pauly Perrette said, “Life is such a strange journey for pretty much all of us. It is a book being written every day, each new chapter unknown to the reader, who is experiencing a path that could turn at any moment.” Yes indeed. We never know from day to day what twists and turns life will hold. However, it is a certainty that at some point we will experience some sort of change; something will be made different from what it once was. When the change fills us with joy, happiness, laughter, smiles, special moments, celebrations, blessings, or opportunity we seem to move forward without a second thought. However, when the change fills us with sadness, heartache, disappointment, hardship, obstacles, or challenges we often become reflective, focusing on what happened, why it happened, and where do I go from here.
The “dark” side of change always has a lesson for us. For me, the basic lesson is life is too short and nothing is guaranteed. We assume there will be tomorrow or next week or next year but our tomorrows, next weeks, next years can be taken from us in the briefest of moments.
Because we only have the present moment it is important that we make the most of the moments we have and not waste a precious second on things like:
Disappointment
Frustrations
Worries
Anger
Regrets
Grudges
Guilt
Hatred
Vengeance
Unimportant matters
Negativity
Energy vampires
Author John Green said, “Our lives are composed of a finite set of moments that we choose how to spend.” Operative words – we choose how to spend the moments we are given. We need to spend our time with people and things that matter. We need to let go of anything takes away moments of happiness, joy, laughter, and smiles. To make the most of the time we are given on our life journey, we need to:
Enjoy the present moment.
Make the most of each and every moment we are given.
Surround ourselves with positive people and experiences.
Engage in things that make our heart smile.
Take nothing or no one for granted.
Have an attitude of gratitude.
Smile and laugh more.
Take time to celebrate, even the smallest of things.
Turn dreams into reality.
Spend quality time with family and friends.
Embrace kindness.
Appreciate what we have.
Rebecca in a blog on Simple Reminders That Life is Too Short tells us, “Appreciate every moment you’re living in before you regret not cherishing it enough. This goes the same for people, things, places, and moments. Life is too short to be angry and resentful that things didn’t go your way because that’s the reality of life. No matter how hard we try, we can never fully control our lives so it’s better to appreciate moments before they pass away completely.”
Rebecca is absolutely right. We should all strive to make the most of our life journey. Knowing that anyone or anything can be taken from us at any time should have us value and appreciate everything that we do have in life as well as empower us to spend the time we do have with those people and situations that will add meaning, wonder, awe, and positive, productive moments to our days. So, live with purpose. Be authentic. Say yes to all of life’s experiences. Live each day in a meaningful way, with intention and positivity. Life is just too short to do otherwise.
The snow that has been falling over the past two weeks has turned my little corner of the world into a winter wonderland. With snow on my mind, a recent Facebook post by Nichole Elder’s really struck a chord with me:
“I drive a school bus and have a 6th grader who I would like to talk about. Last week he was talking about an elderly neighbor not leaving her house for weeks. I tried to explain how hard it could be for her to do things. On Tuesday I pulled up and he wasn’t at the stop waiting. I looked over and saw him shoveling her porch. I was early so I waited for him. The other kids asked why I waited. I said anyone helping someone deserves a few extra minutes. All the kids started asking him questions about his neighbor. The next day 7 children got on the bus with blankets, food and cards for the elderly woman. I delivered them after work. Now everyday she stands on the porch and the whole bus waves good morning. I am so proud of him for stepping up and doing the right thing. He taught all the children something important. I smile with pride in my heart because of the extraordinary children I have on my bus.” Credit: Facebook / Nichole Elder
Kindness, that behavior that is characterized by being friendly, generous, and considerate, is always in fashion and kind acts can be done by all ages. I am sure the children in this story felt very good about themselves by helping out the elderly woman. Those who have studied kindness, like Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and author of The Relaxation Response, and Allan Luks the former executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of Health and author of The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others, found that when we carry out an act of kindness, our body rewards us by creating a ‘feel good’ sensation, which boosts self-esteem and well-being.
Other benefits of kindness that researchers often cite include:
A more optimistic and happier outlook on life
An enriched quality of life
A heightened sense of well-being
More confidence and a greater sense of self-worth
A sense of exhilaration and euphoria
An increase in energy
Better mental health and heart health
A sense of satisfaction
An enhancement in feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor
Stronger relationships
A broaden perspective on life
Feeling connected with others
A greater sense of calmness and relaxation
As we saw from the story, kindness can be extended in numerous ways from lending a helping hand (e.g., shoveling snow off the woman’s porch), providing needed items (giving the woman a blanket), to sharing thoughts in a card. Other small ways we can extend kindness are:
Being there for someone.
Smiling.
Keeping someone close in thought and prayer.
Showing support.
Listening quietly while someone shares their thoughts.
Giving a hug or a warm embrace.
Wiping a tear.
Whispering a gentle word at the right moment.
Calling or texting someone.
Sharing silence.
Holding hands.
Waiting out the tough times with someone.
Providing a helping hand.
Noticing and responding.
Providing words of encouragement.
Giving compliments.
Being a good friend.
Showing appreciation with a simple “thank you.”
Letting someone go in front of us in a long line or first in traffic.
Kindness can also be extended in bigger ways:
Sending flowers.
Sending a small gift.
Mailing a card (for no reason other than it might brighter someone’s day).
Paying for someone’s meal (especially nice to do when in a fast-food drive through).
Volunteering time to help out with a project.
Making a donation to a good cause.
Remember, kindness always counts. Whether we extend kindness in a small or big way, it always makes a huge difference. As in the story, we never know what others may be experiencing in their day or in their lives and a display of kindness may be just what someone needs to get through their day. American rabbi Harold S. Kushner said, “When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.” Well, the world could use some positive change right now. Let’s begin to change the world by extending kindness to others through our words and deeds!
For me, the first two weeks of the New Year have been dominated by viewings and funerals for two people in my immediate circle. The gathering of loved ones to celebrate the lives of these wonderful people highlighted for me the importance of maintaining close ties with all the touchstones, all the friends and family, who bring meaning and value to our lives. I know there are many who at some point want to distance themselves from friends and loved ones as they “head out on their own.” But as the following story of The Kite Without a Thread points out, even when we are out there on our own, we still need to maintain the ties with friends and family.
Once a father and son went to the kite flying festival. The young son became very happy seeing the sky filled with colorful kites. He too asked his father to get him a kite and a thread with a roller so he can fly a kite too. So, the father went to the shop at the park where the festival was being held. He purchased kites and a roll of thread for his son.
His son started to fly a kite. Soon, his kite reached high up in the sky. After a while, the son said, “Father, It seems that the thread is holding up a kite from flying higher, If we break it, It will be free and will go flying even higher. Can we break it?” So, the father cut the thread from a roller. The kite started to go a little higher. That made a son very happy.
But then, slowly, the kite started to come down. And, soon it fell down on the terrace of the unknown building. The young son was surprised to see this. He had cut the kite loose of its thread so it can fly higher, but instead, it fell down. He asked his father, “Father, I thought that after cutting off the thread, the kite can freely fly higher. But why did it fall down?”
The Father explained, “Son, at the height of life that we live in, we often think that some things we are tied with are preventing us from going further higher. The thread was not holding the kite from going higher, but it was helping it stay higher when the wind slowed down and when the wind picked up, you helped the kite go up higher in a proper direction through the thread. And when we cut the thread, it fell down without the support you were providing to the kite through the thread.”
The son realized his mistake.
As the moral points out, “Sometimes we feel that we can progress quickly and reach to the newer heights in our life if we were not tied up with our family, our home. But, we fail to realize that our family, our loved ones help us survive the tough time in our lives with their support and encourage us to reach higher heights in our life. They are not holding us, but are supporting us. Never let go of them.”
Because our life journey will include many bumps, rough patches, detours, and changes along the way, our friends and family provide a measure of stability that is most helpful when dealing with the bumps associated with our life journey. They anchor us, they listen, they encourage, they provide suggestions and advice, and they are just there to provide whatever support may be needed. They do not hold us back but rather provide us the necessary support, just like the kite string, to keep moving forward.
Whether a family member or a friend is with us for a lifetime or only a moment in time, everyone who crosses our path does so for a reason. That reason may be crystal clear or remain a mystery for a long time. But no matter what, we need to make and get the most we can out of all the moments of connection. Each moment of connection adds someone who gives us something – an experience, an idea, the encouragement, the strength – to handle the blessings and the challenges along our life journey.
Our “personal kites” will fly higher and longer if we remember to have a good relationship with all family members and friends. We need to be appreciative, open, honest, tolerant, patient, kind, caring, and considerate. We need to look for mutually beneficial solutions to situations. And, we need to go with the flow remembering to laugh, smile, and have fun along the way. If we do so, we will be able to survive the tough times we encounter on our life journey because of the support and encouragement of those around us. How much richer and fuller our lives will be when we maintain the connection (keep the string) with and have the support of our family and friends.
For most of us, life rolls along day in and day out relatively smoothly. We may experience a few bumps in the road here and there, but those bumps are usually things that can be dealt with easily and quickly. When things in our “world” are moving along smoothly, we can get lulled into a false sense of security that all is right and will remain right. I know that is certainly how I feel most of the time. Well, that security in my “world” was shattered with an early morning phone call on Saturday, December 30, 2023. Word was filtering through the family about the unthinkable – a head-on collision caused by someone driving the wrong way and hitting my cousin’s car. My cousin was in a trauma unit; her boyfriend had been killed instantly in the collision.
The tragedy of this situation is compounded due to its suddenness and unexpected nature. The unexpected nature of this occurrence got me to thinking about change and how we deal with it when it is totally unexpected and out of our control. Things like sudden deaths, job losses that occur without warning, a relationship break up that one doesn’t see coming all fall into the category of unexpected change.
We hear, “Change is constant.” And, indeed, it is. Minor changes go on around us all the time, most without notice – we just take them in stride. It is the major and seismic/unthinkable changes that grab our attention; that throw us for a loop. And when those major and seismic changes come without warning, we enter a state of shock and intense mourning and grieving. The shock and grieving are often triggered by the loss that the change brings. Yes, change is constant. And, yes, some change is totally unexpected and just unthinkable.
This week, I’d like to explore the unexpected side of change and how we can deal with it. A sudden and unexpected change is one that shatters our “world” as we know it. No matter what the change, we end up dealing with some sort of loss, one that usually ruins our comfort zone and leaves us feeling upset, rattled, uncertain, and maybe even defenseless.
When any change happens, there is always a sense of loss: loss of a loved one; loss of a relationship; loss of the familiar; loss of sameness, the comfortable; loss of the certain; loss of a tradition; loss of our comfort zone, our sense of security; loss of our sense of purpose and perhaps even direction; loss of control, space, power, social/role identity, or influence (add your own). And, anytime we lose something, we grieve over the loss. But, unexpected change happens without warning. As a result, we have no time to prepare for the loss. This loss of time to prepare, to get ourselves ready, to get ourselves in a position to be able to deal with the change makes unexpected change very hard to deal with.
Some suggestions to help us deal with it are:
ACKNOWLEDGE ALL EMOTIONS
There is no doubt that unexpected change propels us into a new dimension that is unfamiliar, unsettling, frightening, perhaps overwhelming. We enter this new dimension with a lot of feelings; a lot of emotions like fear, anger, frustration, loneliness, sadness. We need to acknowledge all emotions and work through them. Above all, we need to avoid letting emotions paralyze us. Working through them will help us move on from them.
COURAGE
After the loss of her son, Anne Morrow Lindbergh said, “It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill battle to faith, sanity and security.” Indeed, no matter how we personally deal with loss, the ending that change brings, we all need courage to move forward to our new beginning.
Courage is the mental or moral strength to face fear or danger or to persevere in the wake of adversity (and some may substitute change with adversity) with confidence and resolution. It helps us:
Step out of our comfort zones
Deal with all the unknowns
Refocus goals
Balance the new with the old
Come to grips with what we do, how we think, and who we are with the new situation
Embrace transformations of self and situation
Explore and discover our new beginning
TAKE TIME TO GRIEVE
In addition to courage, we need to allow ourselves to grieve the loss. While everyone grieves differently and more like being on a roller coaster than in discreet stages, the stages in the Kübler-Ross model are a helpful guide. Those stages are: denial (where we refuse to accept the facts; the reality of the situation; this isn’t happening to me!; I can’t believe he is gone!); anger (where we are emotionally upset and sometimes feel a sense of helplessness; why is this happening to me?; I don’t deserve this!); bargaining (where we seek to negotiate a compromise or postpone the action; what if I….; I promise I’ll be a better person if only…; let’s study this idea and see if there is a different solution); depression (extremely sad over what has happened; realizing there is no way to change what has happened; I don’t care anymore!); and, acceptance (the goal of the grieving process; coming to terms with the reality of the situation in a healthy way; OK, me: what is next? I am ready for whatever comes my way). We need to work through these stages, giving ourselves the time to come to terms with the change.
SHED TEARS AND LOTS OF THEM
Author Sophia Dembling tells us that, “Crying is the hallmark of mourning, practically shorthand for the experience. We grieve therefore we cry. Tears are the outward and spontaneous expression of a feeling too primal to fully express any other way.” When my nephew, at age six, lost his dad, he asked why everyone was crying so much. I told him that the tears we shed when crying are like liquid love and by shedding them in times of loss we make room in our heart to store all the wonderful memories we have. Crying is cleansing and cathartic and is a wonderful way to pay homage to whomever or whatever we may have lost.
ASK QUESTIONS THAT HELP US MOVE FORWARD
When unexpected change occurs, the first question that most of us ask is, “Why?” This why is usually the prelude to us wanting to bring meaning or to gain an understanding about what happened. But, often, this question is unanswerable and will not help us move on and move forth. Instead, it is better to ask, “What do I need to do to move on?” “What do I need to do to resume living my life as meaningful as possible?” “What can be learned from this change?”
CONTROL OUR RESPONSE
Another way to deal with the loss of unexpected change is to control our response, our attitude, our view of events. We need to have a resilient mindset which means we control the controllables – our thoughts, words, feelings, and actions – by responding to the situation rather than reacting. Maintaining control will help with good decision making which will help with overcoming the challenges change brought us. Adopt a positive, empowered, “I will get through this” attitude. Choose to be proactive in a positive way. Remember, there is only one thing we can control in life and that is ourselves. It is our response to events, to the change, to the loss that makes the difference.
CHERISH THE MEMORIES
Whatever the change, cherish the memories and keep the ones that make our heart smile close to us. Create a memories box or a memories journal. The positive memories may help energize us and help us handle the day-to-day decisions or help us get over any “rough patches” that we may encounter.
PRACTICE SELF CARE
Depending on the type of loss associated with the change, we may be prone to taking care of everyone around us, but it is important to take care of ourselves! Maintain a normal routine (this may also help us feel more in control). Get enough sleep. Eat right. Exercise regularly. Take things one moment at a time; one day at a time.
SHARE FEELINGS
Last, but not least, we need to keep our “touchstones,” our friends and family close. Many say that the single most important factor in dealing with and healing from unexpected change is having the support of others. Sharing our feelings about the loss makes it much easier to deal with the loss.
There is no doubt that dealing with the unthinkable is painful and difficult. But, it is important for us to work through the pain and the difficult moments. In the days following the unthinkable it is our response that is important; it is what we make of what’s left that is important; it is living life in a meaningful way that is important. Life does go on. It will have a new beginning after the unexpected change. It is up to all of us to make the new beginning the best that it can be.
Author Becky Johnen 