Life Is One Big School, Many Lessons

Life is hard. Those three words are straight to the point, no question about it, no gray area - about as true as it gets. No matter who you are, you can be going along, day to day, everything falling in to place and suddenly - it all falls apart.

Even though the tendency would be to wish everything would go easy, simply... Reality is, it doesn't work that way. And wouldn't it be just a little bit boring if it did?

If everything was always perfect, and there were no missteps, no difficulties - what would we have in our lives that actually challenged us? Challenges are those pesky things which even though they can cause stress and heart ache, at the same time they can help us to grow and become, believe it or not, better.

My dad always told me that a mistake is not a mistake, unless you didn't learn anything from it. Add to that a word of wisdom from his mom, my grandmother, (which I believe I have shared before) and that is, "through every storm there is always a rainbow - it's just sometimes you have to look a little harder to find it."

I know it can be difficult to see anything good when something devastating happens. However, it can be done. We just have to be in the right mindset to lean toward the positive rather than the negative. Is that easy? Many times, it isn't even close.

My dad, who had polio and was a cancer survivor, was one of the most positive people I have ever known. His smile could light up a room. In spite of all the challenges he faced in his lifetime, he always said what got him through was "knowing there was always someone out there who had it worse than he did."

As human beings that can be difficult at times to keep in mind. After all, it is much easier to feel "sorry" for ourselves than to think maybe our difficulty isn't as bad as it feels.

I think about those who survived the Great Depression days. They suffered a great deal and yet, many of them persevered through it all. They didn't let their circumstances keep them from putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward.  There were of course a few exceptions, but if there weren't those some who came out of it the rest of us wouldn't even be here.

I struggle sometimes when things get difficult, but yet, I'm still here. It is even more difficult when I see my children, grandchildren or anyone I care about struggle. I have a tendency to want to "fix it" for them. The problem is, if I or anyone else always "fixed" their problems how would they learn to fix them?

Life is one big school, with many lessons to be learned - every single day. Many of those lessons may be difficult to master; however, we will not be able to begin to overcome them if we don't at least take that first step and try. Just the act of doing our best is in, and of itself, a rainbow.

We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we react. We can lay down and suffer, or we can stand up and make the outcome better. It's up to us. One lesson at a time.