NEVER HOPELESS

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.”

–General George S. Patton

Do you know how many people I have come across who think they have hit rock bottom?

I can tell you this: There are more who think they have hit rock bottom than actually have. Because rock bottom is actually a place of rest. Yeah. Rest.

It was very early in the morning and my headlights did their best to cut through the dense soupy mix but all I was able to see was a few feet of the double yellow lines and the white fog line on the shoulder. I slowed a bit but being familiear with the road I kept on a a pace that was probably greater than I should have been travelling at. Leaning on the wheel, it occured to me that this was exactly like life is. There are times when we have it all under control and travel along at breakneck speeds, sure of where we started and even surer of where we are ending up. But then,……..we encounter the fog.

We go through our days acknowledging those who have made us feel important or special. There might have been a particularly helpful clerk in a store or a fire police member who was directing traffic around an accident that took the time to explain the detour not just wave you on without any offer of direction. There may have been someone you work with who acknowledged your hard work. Someone said thank you for something ordinary. You might find that you are the recipient of a random act of kindness. That always makes us feel good and we are thankful for it.

But, how quickly do we forget?

True Greatness

exists in your Hopes and Dreams

and the effort you commit to reaching them.

–Me

I think I’ve always had this idea that in order to be something in life I had to become great. But time and experience has worn away the flaws in that thinking like the wind against the sandstone outcroppings

The things we allow people to see of ourselves often is much different than what lies beneath the surface, no?

.

Hope for the Hopeless is like food to the starving person. People know they need food, they desperately want it but if they devour it all at once, they are sure to be sick as their body, unable to accept it, rejects their effort to save it.
Starving for hope is exactly the same thing in many ways. We have had times in our lives when the answers to questions and problems lay right in front of us and to most people it seems as if we are just not willing to make a move to help ourselves. But the reality is that although a buffet of hope, promise, prosperity, emotional riches and real joy may be right in front of us, the emotional and psychological weakness of our condition, the desolate desert of our minds renders us unable to take in the mountain of hope that lays all about us.

What a hectic day.

A few hours into my day I receive a call from my wife telling me that she had broken down on her way to work and she didn’t know what was wrong with the Jeep. She arranged for a ride to work and I promised that I’d go look at it right after work. I cancelled my dentist appointment and began to hustle through my stops trying to get back and done early so that I could hopefully get to my daughters softball game too. Something had to give.

The two widows lived in a quaint retirement community with it’s manicured lawns, perfectly trimmed bushes, a view of the valley to the south and social events scheduled months in advance. Presumably all this and more was to keep the old folks from complaining about the conditions, how things used to be and how dismal the present was which paled in comparison as imminent planetary doom that surely lay just beyond next week. Some folks could real off a tirade, bash the government, complain about medicine prices, show pics of the grandkids and take in a healthy breakfast all before their 9:00 a.m. shuffleboard reservation. These folks are professionals.

But, the sad reality is that there is alot of pain in those places. Loneliness, isolation, memories of better days, powerlessness, emptiness and hopelessness takes over for some people and that’s exactly what was found as we pushed open the door and stepped through into an apartment, once filled with laughter and now a tomb of death.

Ok. This is an especially tough subject given the state of things here in the United States these days. Statistics on Divorce have been getting worse and worse and today, more than half……HALF!……. of marriages end in divorce. It’s a staggering statistic.
We sat there as our friend asked for a few moments to address the group. All eyes turned to her and there was a collective breath held as we all imagined what was coming. She trembled as she began.

I got thinking about this the other day while talking to a friend who is going through a huge struggle in their life. Talk about feeling hopeless! But at one point they said something to me that made a whole lot of sense especially as I look back on my own life and thoughts. They told me that one day I would open my eyes and see just how broken they really were.