Rather, the things that are beyond our control that have significant impact on our lives...the things we don't expect, and don't plan for, but suffer or rejoice in the changes they effect, and they may well make "all the difference."
A nice example is winning the lottery (with a whopping payoff, I mean). I'm reasonably certain that people don't really expect to win the lottery when they buy their tickets. Yet a windfall can change a person's life (I know, I know, all kinds of lottery winners mismanage their money, but let's go with the dream of winning big and living better). An unpleasant example is discovering that your significant other is cheating on you...with your best friend, sibling, or a stranger. No matter whom, the discovery wreaks havoc, and the circumstances themselves are out of your control.
More complicated are the examples that pepper most people's lives. Not finding the "right one" to marry (assuming you want to marry)...not having children on your desired schedule...having children with disabilities...losing a job at which you excel because of "the economy, stupid!" Any one of these turns of events has an element of the tragic to it, because it twists the path of your life in directions that you had not intended or expected or desired.
And any one of these turns of events is reason to mope - at least, on occasion, and for some, to be morose. But others handle the unexpected changes with such poise that their life's challenges appear ideal (or at least wonderful) to the beholder. And that is the point - that each of these unexpected changes to the course of one's life influence the details of the day-to-day. For though one can get stuck in the morass of upset from the unexpected, one can instead continue along, with aplomb, living the life we are given. For example:
- The single person who makes the most of his or her time....in career or creative endeavor or academic endeavor or social action or travel or self-development (it's all self-development, really!).
- The childless couple who does similarly...living among those who have children (even many children) and relish their opportunities that the demands of children would not have permitted.
- The family with a disabled child that demonstrates a capacity for loving and giving and good humor (any child allows for the same, of course, but some "special children" take the cake...literally, if you let them!).
- The unemployed person who uses the loss of job as an opportunity to pursue his or her true interests, and develops himself or herself beyond his or her previous expectations.
I know several who are described by each of the above circumstances...and I would love to tell their stories in greater detail - primarily because not one of the people I am thinking of may be considered a "Pollyanna." They are not "making the best of a bad situation" (though perhaps they truly are). Rather, they live each day...putting one foot in front of the other, handling whatever has come their way. But I don't want to trespass on their privacy either. Suffice it to say that one unmarried woman went to college, and then graduate school, at the age of 25, instead of continue to twiddle her thumbs (she learned to roller blade too, and in the years afterwards, did marry and have children). Another woman used her time "between jobs" to delve into the art of baking bread. One father of a disabled child recounts his son's startling artistic talent with pride (instead of bemoaning the boy's handicaps), and a mother of another disabled child told me that the family is lucky he is so lovable. He IS lovable; they are lucky. But what impresses me is that her comment acknowledges the hardship she faces in the very same breath that she compliments her son.
I'm not sure that one achieves poise with effort (isn't the wonder of poise that it is effortless?), but if I could manage the challenges in my own life not by confronting them, but by simply living them, day-to-day, with grace and aplomb, I might deem them conquered.
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