I heard yesterday, during Talk of the Nation, on NPR, a story about a former professional football player who had become an opera singer. He was sharing his story and what it means to stop doing something you are good at and moving into something at the beginning. And he said something that stopped me in my tracks:
"We often don't look at our lives unless something goes wrong. We need speed bumps to reflect and assess where we are going." (paraphrased)
And he is right.
We don't reflect on what we could be doing differently if everything is going fantastic. It is only when life is throwing us curve balls (the only sports metaphor I could think of) that we start to really think about what we might be doing wrong, where we are going, how we can approach something differently. When things are going good we just enjoy the moment - we really are creatures of pleasure.
Speed bumps, tragedies, hard times, difficulties - if you are thinking about it in these terms - are there to move you forward. Or at least stop you long enough to think about what next step you are going to take. Granted, no one likes to hurt. I certainly don't. And I often tell my daughter that life does continue to challenge you - even when you are in your 40's. (An idea that makes her groan, thinking that it might just get easier once she is out of college and her 20's.)
So what if instead of whining (guilty), complaining (guilty), running away from our problems (guilty), or banging our head against the way (guilty, figuratively) we approached life as an experiment or investigation and got really curious. We could see potential problems as opportunities or challenges to overcome.
I know you are shaking your head and saying that in theory that sounds great, but in the midst of a crappy day when everything goes wrong it isn't as easy to practice "curiosity". But what if we gave ourselves a little room to try. To slow down and take the time to acknowledge that even though it is hard it might just be pulling us in a direction that is ultimately better.
I know that there isn't one hard thing that I would want to relive and when I even think about them tears well up in my eyes, but I don't regret any of them because those inconvenient, painful, heart-wrenching moments shape who I am. So, I'll slow down a little for the speed bumps of life and take the time to reflect and choose the next road I am going to take. At least I'll try.
Flickr Image: veggiefrog
