“It’s what happens to get us to the first step that’s often the hardest part of the journey.
Our willingness to recognize the need, our choice to make a positive shift, our promise to commit to the work it takes to see it through, and the discipline that such a journey requires give credence to this statement.”
—Gregg Braden
It’s also what happens to us that often keeps us from taking the first step. I talk a lot about this because it is so critical in our growth. The things that we go through in life are often hard, heartbreaking, and if we allow it, stifling to our progress. A challenging circumstance or a setback in life can make a person want to throw their hands up in surrender, therefore staying stuck in a rut. Instead of wallowing in your less than desirable circumstances, make a choice to change them.
Can you find something positive in your situation—even some tiny seed of a thought that helps you to start climbing out of that rut? I guarantee you that you can. I have practiced this when I decided that I was going to make something out of my life, even if I spent it all in prison. I practiced it in 2006 when one of my three brothers died, in 2008 when my dad died, and in 2016 when another brother died.
Because of a bad choice I made when I was sixteen years old, I had to miss the services of them all. I mourned for them alone in a prison cell. I practiced it when I lost my appeal on my case in the District Court, then the state Supreme Court, and again when the U.S.S.C. refused to hear my case. I practice it when I don’t feel like it—or when my guilt for my mistakes has made me feel that I don’t deserve happiness.
You may not be able to wake up one day and automatically change where you live or who your family is, but you can choose who you are. You can choose to be a person of integrity no matter what life hands you. Your lowest moments are the most critical in your life because it is in those moments that you have to draw on the better part of yourself that knows you need to make a mental shift. Dwelling on a piece of your life or your character that you don’t like will do nothing to move you forward. Everything that happens, the good and the bad, shape who we are as individuals. Use the bad to create good.
