I don't want to say "there are times where you feel helpless", because, most of the time you're helpless and you just refuse to admit it to yourself. Most things you can't control, no matter how much you think you can. However, I'm gonna say that "there are times you feel helpless" because even if you can't control things, many times (even if only sometimes) you have a chance to at least nudge them in the direction you're looking for, but, occasionally, rarely (thank God), you can't even do that.
When you're a kid, you give up easily. Things are "impossible!" As you age and learn stick-to-it-iveness, though, you start to believe that pretty much anything is possible, that if you bear down and focus and get on it, you can achieve what you set your mind to. Sure, sure, some of that is fantasy, but adults (the worthwhile ones) refuse to accept that anything simply can't be done.
Every once in a while though, there's no second opinion you can get; there's no figuring a way out of the problem; what's done is done.
My grandfather got a chest x-ray as part of a regular checkup and there seemed like there was something on his lung, so they did another x-ray. Everything came back clear. Six months later, he had another x-ray done. Cancer everywhere. Turned out that, on the second x-ray six months before, a rib had blocked the small cancer spot that had shown up on the first x-ray. Didn't matter that the x-ray tech should have thought of that six months earlier. By the time they realized what had happened, he was done. Yes, yes. There's chemotherapy and radical treatments and whatnot, but when that sort of thing happens, there's no fixing it. He died.
As a soldier and a pragmatist, I'm more aware than most that life is precious and that there are no do-overs or take-backs. I'm comfortable with, well, if not "comfortable" at least I understand and accept, the fact that sometimes "bad" things happen. There's not much use crying over spilt milk or pondering what could have been if things had been done differently. Time travel doesn't exist.
Nearly all psychological therapy can be distilled down to acceptance, as in "What happened happened and can't be undone. You need to accept it and move on."
Of course, none of that is to say that because I am aware of the unrelenting nature of time and fact that I therefore have no problems accepting difficult happenstances.
I am better at acceptance than many, particularly when it concerns myself. If something bad/unfortunate happens to me, "thems the breaks" and I try to move on with my day (hypocrisy acknowledgement: yes, there are things I have never let go of).
When something bad happens to friends and family though, I have a particularly hard time with it because I refuse to accept that there isn't a way out for them. And, even if I accept that there isn't a way out for them, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it, because...well... just because.
Because I love them and don't want anything bad to happen to them no matter how unrealistic that is, because that's what loving someone is.
Would that it were "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."
But...
When you're a kid, you give up easily. Things are "impossible!" As you age and learn stick-to-it-iveness, though, you start to believe that pretty much anything is possible, that if you bear down and focus and get on it, you can achieve what you set your mind to. Sure, sure, some of that is fantasy, but adults (the worthwhile ones) refuse to accept that anything simply can't be done.
Every once in a while though, there's no second opinion you can get; there's no figuring a way out of the problem; what's done is done.
My grandfather got a chest x-ray as part of a regular checkup and there seemed like there was something on his lung, so they did another x-ray. Everything came back clear. Six months later, he had another x-ray done. Cancer everywhere. Turned out that, on the second x-ray six months before, a rib had blocked the small cancer spot that had shown up on the first x-ray. Didn't matter that the x-ray tech should have thought of that six months earlier. By the time they realized what had happened, he was done. Yes, yes. There's chemotherapy and radical treatments and whatnot, but when that sort of thing happens, there's no fixing it. He died.
As a soldier and a pragmatist, I'm more aware than most that life is precious and that there are no do-overs or take-backs. I'm comfortable with, well, if not "comfortable" at least I understand and accept, the fact that sometimes "bad" things happen. There's not much use crying over spilt milk or pondering what could have been if things had been done differently. Time travel doesn't exist.
Nearly all psychological therapy can be distilled down to acceptance, as in "What happened happened and can't be undone. You need to accept it and move on."
Of course, none of that is to say that because I am aware of the unrelenting nature of time and fact that I therefore have no problems accepting difficult happenstances.
I am better at acceptance than many, particularly when it concerns myself. If something bad/unfortunate happens to me, "thems the breaks" and I try to move on with my day (hypocrisy acknowledgement: yes, there are things I have never let go of).
When something bad happens to friends and family though, I have a particularly hard time with it because I refuse to accept that there isn't a way out for them. And, even if I accept that there isn't a way out for them, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it, because...well... just because.
Because I love them and don't want anything bad to happen to them no matter how unrealistic that is, because that's what loving someone is.
Would that it were "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."
But...
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