Sometimes, All I Could Do Was Just Keep Breathing!

On Facebook recently, I made a post in a group in reply to someone who had been going through a really hard time.

At the urging of a friend, I have posted my reply here, for everyone to read, and it follows, with some editing and refinement:

“If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want. Give first with no ulterior motive or expectation.” (Napoleon Hill)

Two of the things that I have learned is that life isn’t easy sometimes, and that nobody ever said that it would be.

Having said that, let me hasten to add that that is my experience, not just a philosphy.

In fact, sometimes over the past five years my favourite quote has been from Tom Hanks in ‘Cast Away’:

“Sometimes, all I could do was just keep breathing…”

And life is like that sometimes, we have to just go into our routine, and know that at some time, the change has to come.

When My Dad died last year, I was completely devastated.

The last thing we’d done together was watch a game of football. The next day I was up and gone on a business trip.

I was called back to town a few hours later, and arrived at the hospital just in time to see him one last time.

He hadn’t been the same since my Mum died in 2003, and he’d literally pined away – they had been together for 60 years.

Even now, as I write this, it still hurts, and the tears still flow…

But as a husband, father and member of community first, and as a business man and writer last, I have to keep going.

And I do keep going, with other issues to work through, and four teenagers to guide through life.

As I write, I have someone close to me battling a very serious illness.

I guess that at times it would be nice not to have to go through a lot of life’s issues, but in a sense, they do help make us who we are.

It is our reaction that helps determine what sort of person we are.

At other times I think that it would be great to be able to go back in time to change some of the past!

The fact is, that these things come to all of us, and are woven into the tapestry of our lives.

During these times, we can only see the back of that tapestry, with the bits that are hanging out and looking untidy.

We need to have a look at the other side as well…

My parents were there for me all those years and believed in me,

I have freedom of speech and liberty,

I’ve been blessed with a wonderful wife and children,

I have great friends,

I have good health,

and I could sit and list more blessings from the other side of the tapestry, but this post would never finish.

So much of our lives are spent in fear of what might happen, or worrying about what we haven’t got.

To me, if you have a roof over your head, food, plus hot and cold running water – you are already better off than over half the world’s population!

How do you measure real wealth? By the things that you own, or the spending power that your money gives you?

My measure of wealth is based in the grounding and education that my parents gave me, in the love and support of my wife, and in the children that I have been blessed with.

My friends are part of my wealth, and I’m very fortunate to have them too.

I guess that when we go through difficult times, it’s our reaction to the situation that helps us to define who we are.

My reactions to the issues that that I face now, and how I relate to those around me, are part of the inheritance that I will leave to my children…

Remember:

If you’re going through hell, don’t stop ’til you get out the other side…