I have said this before on my podcast and in my writings … Life is NOT about what happens “to” you … life is about how you respond, your reaction to events …

We do not have control over all the events that happen to us in life, but we DO have total control of how we react and adjust to them …

The journey is as much about perception as it is about decision … How you see things determine how you will react … Change yourself and you change the world around you …

It has been a HELL of a year … It began in January when I was out of commission for two months that started with chest pains … selling our house … Alta’s first major surgery … Sandy fighting cancer … Alta’s SECOND major surgery …

And now Alta’s workplace calling us yesterday telling her that her position cannot be held open and they are letting her go as of Christmas Eve …

Alta worked for Southern Maine Health Care right at the hospital, and they said she was an excellent employee during the same phone call that they told her she was no longer an employee …

I understand it’s a “business” decision … that allows the people actually MAKING the decision to hide behind the business itself and not have to feel compassion so they can sleep at night …

… fuckers …

BUT I’m getting off track …

We don’t get to choose what happens to us all the time … It would be easy to blame God, or Gods, Goddesses, Universe, Teddy Ruxpin, whoever, for all the horrible shit that happens in life … I don’t believe that for a moment.

It would be easy to just curl up in a ball at the back of the closet and hibernate, peeking out every few years to see if anything has changed, grabbing a spoon and another jar of peanut butter and crawling back into that dark, safe place.

Or you change yourself … and change your world…

Life is not the struggle most people think it is … don’t get me wrong, it IS a struggle at times …

just not the one you think it is …

I believe everything happens for a reason, even if I don’t know what that reason is … even if the reason is only because “Shit Happens” …

Every struggle does NOT have to be fought with a face on attack, pushing against the wind … sometimes it is enough to hold on and just keep from being blown over … sometimes it means finding shelter until the storm passes … sometimes it means walking sideways across the wind … sometimes it means backing up and finding a different way around…

There are challenges every day … learning how to flow around them means keeping perspective so you can make the right decisions for YOUR life … being able to bend in the wind so you don’t break …

Sometimes you have to changes paths to get around broken trees in the way …

Your journey is not a single path, it may be winding and full of thorn bushes at times… and straight and sunny with flowers growing along it at others …

Flowers grow in shit …

Perception…

I can’t control what happens to me in Life all the time … I CAN control how I deal with it.

I’ve seen a LOT of shit in my life, and I know it doesn’t stay that way …

Change is the constant, and change is neither “Good” nor “Bad”…

It just “Is” …

It is our personal perception that determines “Good” or “Bad” …

MY perception in life is “Is”… and it is my reactions that I CHOOSE to stay positive.

It wasn’t a heart attack I had in January, and the medication I’m taking fixed the problem I do have … being able to sell our house probably kept us from losing our house to the bank with all our bills this year, and we have a wonderful apartment for now that is cheaper than what we were paying … Alta’s first operation on her neck kept her from being paralyzed or dead, and she is getting feeling back into her arms… Sandy’s cancer was removed and follow-up tests are showing negative for any more cancer … Alta’s second operation on her lower back last week is already showing signs of helping with the pain in her legs …

As far as Alta’s job? … Change is constant … new beginnings, new year.

Blessed Yule, Blessed Solstice … and the path keeps on before us

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