Some of my friends are going through a rather hard time in their lives. Life has a habit of throwing curves balls and it never throws them one at a time. It likes to keep hitting you until you feel yourself begin to buckle under the strain of trying to hold things together.
What do you tell a friend who has reached the last, last straw? What do you tell a friend who is juggling so many issues that they can’t sleep at night for all the catching up their mind tries to do? What do you tell a friend who is making a decision that will tear them apart?
You tell them the simple truth.
Life can be fucking hard. For everyone. Yes, most of the time, when things go wrong, it’s because of decisions we’ve made. But nobody is perfect. We all make bad decisions. Sometimes we don’t have any choice – all of the available options are bad. The lucky get a few free passes on the consequences.
The unlucky…don’t.
Don’t obsess about making the one right decision for every issue you face. Focus on issues one at a time. Make the best decision possible with what you know, and move on.
***
Let’s talk about football.
No, seriously.
In the movie ‘Any Given Sunday’, Al Pacino’s plays Tony D’Amato, an NFL coach. His personal life has gone very badly, due in large part to bad decisions. Towards the end of the movie he gives a speech that does a remarkable job of explaining how to get through when things are beyond hard, beyond painful, beyond acceptable.
You get through by fighting for every inch. It’s when you stop fighting, stop caring, that you falter.
Never give up. Never stop trying. Never stop believing it can get better. Because it can. It will. If only for a little while, you can find respite. You can find those moments of joy that make everything else fade to yesterday’s memories, pale and wane in the face of new love, a live concert of your favorite band, the tight pleasure of being bound and taken, or the smile of a friend who is just happy to see you.
[audio:AnyGivenSunday_Inches.mp3]
Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday
Amen to that. Nothing lasts forever – no pain. Either you die, and then things have to get better (because even if there’s nothing in the afterlife, it’s probably better than the pain you’re getting on earth) or things look up eventually. One of the two.
Hey, maybe that sounded depressing, but it’s what I think about when times get tough…
That which does not kill me makes me stronger: the story of my life. Which is not to say I haven’t thought about laying across the train tracks on many many (many many many) occasions. But still I am here, and here I will stay.
Now I’ve got Diana Ross crooning “I Will Survive” stuck in my head.
You don’t have to walk with your head up, or your head down…you just have to walk.
Or, in my case, trudge-plod-stumble. Sometimes, even though you really don’t want to live, you can’t help but do just that. I think I’m one of those…lucky for me, eh?
Lucky for you too, because otherwise you’d never get to meet me. *smirk*
Sadly, sorrowfully .. one of my best friends just could not make it plodding along as he was.. so last Monday .. he killed himself.
Thankfully most of us don’t get to that point..
We go along.. plodding.. falling, failing, but getting up again and again and again.. to go one.. and find one glorious moment now and then.
Those are the lucky ones.
My friend was not one