Over Adversity (#triumph #luck #courage)

By Lisabet Sarai

I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my life. Though I wasn’t exactly born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I’ve never been poor or hungry. Through a combination of hard work and lucky breaks, I managed to get a stellar education without ending up buried in debt. I’ve had several stimulating careers; none of them has made me rich, but they’ve all provided enough money for me to be comfortable and independent, and enough challenge to satisfy me, intellectually and emotionally. Between work and leisure, I’ve had the opportunity to travel extensively. Living in several foreign cultures has expanded my understanding of the world.

Aside from terrible eyesight, flat feet and some arthritis, I don’t have any physical handicaps, and for more than six decades, have escaped any serious health issues. My relationships have been lucky, too: caring and supportive parents, strong connections with siblings, a few lifelong friendships, a couple dozen lovers in my wilder days and a marriage of more than thirty years duration since I’ve calmed down a bit.

I’ve always been gratefully aware of my good fortune, but lately I’ve been feeling humbled and embarrassed. As one natural disaster after another unfolds around the globe—as humans inflict horrible suffering on one another in a dozen different conflicts—as my friends and acquaintances face disability, disease and death—I can’t help but wonder why I’ve been spared.

Recently I ran a contest for members of my “VIP Email List”. I do this every few months. My usual strategy is to ask anyone who wants to enter to send me an email, answering some question, often about marketing issues. Then I randomly draw winners from the emails I get.

This time, I simply asked my readers to send me a bit of news about what they’d been doing recently, or what they had planned for Halloween. I received maybe a dozen responses. I was shocked by how many of them talked frankly about the problems they’d been facing. One reader’s home had been destroyed by Hurricane Irma, another by Hurricane Harvey (she even sent me photos of the flooding). A long time fan shared frustrating news about her daughter’s most recent, unsuccessful surgery. Another woman told me about her tango lessons. She used to belly dance, she confided, but since her MS has worsened, tango is the only sort of dance that fits her physical limitations. Then there’s the fan who serves as caretaker for her disabled husband and autistic son. She told me she’s looking forward to spending a quiet Halloween curled up in a chair reading.

The thing that struck me about all these emails was their mostly cheerful tone. These women were all dealing with adversity far beyond anything I’ve experienced, but they didn’t seem discouraged or demoralized. This was life, their notes implied. We don’t have any choice but to handle it as best we can.

Personally, I think this deserves the term “triumph”. These women are quiet, unsung heroines, managing in the face of difficult odds. I find myself wondering if I’d have their strength, if our positions were reversed.

I have a second cousin once removed who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a fairly rare genetic disorder that condemns the sufferer to increasingly severe paralysis, usually leading to early death. You can find out more about this debilitating disease here: http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2017/06/charity-sunday-1-fightsma-donation.html Danny’s mom and dad basically spend their entire lives dealing with his limitations. I can scarcely imagine how difficult it must be for them, as well as for their other son and their extended family. Yet they post photos on Facebook of family gatherings, where everyone is smiling, including little Danny— grinning behind his oxygen mask. How do they do it? Where do they find the courage to live this life, to play the awful hand they’ve been dealt by Fate? Yet they do, one day at a time, and I believe there may be more love in their home than in most.

That’s my definition of triumph.

Then there’s this story, about a Syrian refugee who has managed to fulfill his dream of becoming a dancer:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/13/its-dance-or-die-the-ballet-dancer-forbidden-to-perform-by-islamic-state

Talk about overcoming obstacles—though in this case they’re economic, geopolitical, and cultural barriers rather than physical ones.

These stories inspire me, but they also make me uncomfortable. I haven’t been tested like this. I’m afraid that if I were, I’d be found wanting. I feel soft, spoiled by my good fortune, not to mention slightly terrified that the ill luck I’ve managed to escape thus far is waiting just around the corner.

Then I realize that even if something awful happened tomorrow, I’d still have a million reasons to be grateful. And I wonder if this is the key to survival, to triumphing over adversity—recognizing that no matter how bad things get, they’re always a lot better than they could be.

Taking Steps

By Lisabet Sarai

God give me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

The courage

To change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

I haven't been to a Twelve Step meeting in decades, but the simple prayer above is still a tool I use regularly in dealing with my life. It captures a great deal of wisdom in just a single sentence, suggesting a strategy for overcoming frustration, worry and despair.

The crux of that technique? Maybe some people focus on the acceptance aspect, the notion that fighting against something that's inevitable and immutable simply wastes precious emotional energy without solving any problems. I definitely believe that's true. I resonate strongly with the Buddhist notion that attachment is the source of suffering.

For me, however, the most important function of the so-called Serenity Prayer is to remind me that I have the power to choose, to change aspects of my existence that don't seem to be working well. When I'm unhappy, I've learned to examine the situation in order to determine whether I in fact have any control over the ostensible causes.

Over the past six months, I've been feeling that Oh Get a Grip was floundering. We've had last minute topics, missed posts, Saturdays without guests. Even more distressing was the fact that I wasn't enjoying the process of blogging much anymore. I viewed my Sunday post as one more task I had to get done, a not-necessarily-pleasant responsibility with an inconvenient deadline. That attitude has probably been reflected in the quality of my posts, too (although I'd like to believe that isn't true).

I was aware of my negative emotions swirling around the Grip, but for quite a while I felt powerless to do much about them. I didn't want to shut the blog down – I know we have loyal readers, and anyway I personally love reading the contributions of my fellow blog members. And yet I felt as though I couldn't honestly keep doing it, week after week after week. The blog was draining me, stealing time from my writing, making me feel guilty... I felt trapped.

When I raised the issue with the other blog members, I discovered they had similar feelings – both positive and negative. Together we realized that we didn't have to accept things the way they were, that we could engineer changes to the blog schedule and content without throwing in the towel completely.

So starting this week, you'll see several changes here at Oh Get a Grip. Instead of having daily posts, we'll offer new content three times weekly, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And each of us will post on alternate weeks. We'll still moot topics to stimulate our creativity and encourage dialogue, but each topic will span two weeks, so every Gripper will have the opportunity to weigh in. We've also modified our procedures for choosing topics, so everyone will know the subject under discussion well in advance - but that's an internal issue. Finally, we won't have regular Saturday guests anymore. However, since we'll have Tuesdays and Thursdays free, we're very open if any other authors want to come and play with us on a temporary basis. (If you'd like to be a guest blogger at the Grip, just email me at the address you'll find here: http://www.lisabetsarai.com/links.html.)

We hope that our loyal readers feel as positively about these changes as we do. I'm excited by the prospect of having more time to think about my posts and to pen essays or fiction snippets that really sparkle. And I'm proud that we have had the courage to take the steps necessary to keep the Grip alive and growing – as opposed to just giving up.