In yesterday’s post, I introduced you to the first of what I call the “Four Givens” – life experiences that are natural to us all. These experiences tend to bog us down and potentially derail our progress through life. These experiences often create challenges that demand we take action that may be outside our comfort zone. In today’s post, I will touch briefly on the second of the “Four Givens” – Lives Are Shattered!
Logic assumes that during the process of struggle, something will be shattered or broken – ideas; relationships; expectations; perceptions; dreams; a sweat!
This logical sequence of events plays out every day! If we are to go about the business of living successfully, we must learn to embrace the fact that from time to time, we will have something shatter in the process.
Remember this from your childhood? “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again!” I don’t know about you but the visuals that accompany that short poem are painful! Yikes! And yet . . . I can certainly identify!
The tragic little ditty about Humpty Dumpty provides an opportunity to examine this Experience in a different way. Whenever we face “mean times” (defined as events that enter our life that are tragic, traumatic, difficult, etc.) in life, almost without exception parts of our lives are indeed shattered – anything from small cracks in our perceptions to the complete destruction of dreams, depending on the severity of the struggle. Sometimes we see the shattering coming and other times we are taken completely by surprise. Regardless, we are left with the daunting task of cleaning up the mess; working to make sense of the event; putting things back together again; starting over. We find ourselves grabbing the glue!
Since this series of posts is designed to invite personal reflection, introspection and evaluation, I want to ask you to take a piece of paper and a pen (perhaps the paper you started with yesterday) and write briefly about the most recent experience where some part of your life was shattered.
- What was the experience?
- In what part of your life did the cracks or “shattering” take place?
- How has that affected you?
- What steps are you contemplating taking to begin putting the pieces back together?
Life is a Struggle and therefore, Lives are often Shattered. Those are realities. How we deal with those realities will determine the paths we take. I am hopeful that paths of healing will emerge from the fog of such experiences.
Peace!
Mark E. Hundley
