MOMENTS IN TIME

There are times in life when you will find yourself out-of-place, out of your depth, and out of time. How you respond to these moments will forever dictate how you respond to adversity and challenge. As you continue forward, you will see more and more of what you are capable of withstanding. Each obstacle you overcome will lend itself to you in the future. One thing you can rely on completely is that hard or tough things will never stop coming your way. Some people will see these for what they are, but others will become consumed with how horrible and tragic things are.

I remember being little and having a grandmother that was very central and present in my life. She was hit by a drunk driver and injured so severely they identified the car that hit her by the pieces of her still on his bumper. She was put back together again with screws, bolts, and the technology of the time. She went on to accomplish a lot of great things in her life and raise three kids on her own. She didn’t let a tragedy dictate her life or limit her success in the future.

A lesson I learned from her that will forever stick with me was after her sister died. She was shaken up by it. I was little at the time, but I remember her crying. While I don’t remember what I said to her at the time, I remember what she said to me. “You have twenty-four hours to be sad. Then it’s time to move on.” Those words have reverberated with me anytime something happens that rocks my world. She was right. The world won’t stop for you to mourn, nor will it stop kicking you just because you’re down.

Each person reacts to challenges in their own way. Some people seem unshakeable in different pillars like faith, drive, or loyalty. No matter what happens to them, they never seem to doubt or stray from that core pillar. If something challenges them outside of that pillar, something greater or something they don’t have answers for, they start to unravel and display a completely different reaction.

Some events become so pivotal to people that they spend the rest of their life holding onto them like their last breath. Once an event happens in your life, there is nothing you can do to change it. You can’t undo the past. Sometimes we seem to forget that. We can only prepare for the next set of challenges and release the past to be the past. There is no glory to be found in memory, but only in what you do after.

There is no glory to be found in memory, but only in what you do after.

The world is full of amazing stories of people surviving horrible events or overcoming adversity. We share them on social media yet neglect to remember them when things become adverse for us. We often fail to see our own greatness. It’s only when others tell you how you’ve helped them through a difficult time that we begin do we see it. No matter how bad it is or how bad it gets, there is nothing gained by giving up.

You are unique and have flaws, but that’s not something to be sad about. Each scar, whether it’s physical or mental, has changed you. However, it has not ended you. If it had, you wouldn’t be reading this. So why let something make you feel like you’ve been ended? Why limit yourself or your actions to just the negative things that have happened to you? When you do that, you give these negative things power over you. With that power, you can be manipulated or caged. Your potential becomes limited. You will not win every battle. If you do, you’re not reaching far enough into your potential.

Sometimes we learn more from ourselves after a failure or realizing a training scar. However, never take yourself out of the fight. No one expects you to be perfect. No matter how hard you try, you never will be. Take the challenges and embrace them. Recognize that the only thing you have to do is die one day and you have no idea when that day is coming. Enjoy the challenges and look forward to the sunlight on your face when you emerge from the dark. The challenges will come no matter what you do. Why not take them in and wrap yourself around them? Acknowledge you are facing a daunting opponent, then attack it! Don’t say you can’t do it, but instead get started and figure out what else you need in your arsenal to finish it!