Life on Life’s Terms

Dealing with life on life’s terms is perhaps one of the greatest skills to learn, but difficult to develop because it requires hardship. 

The past two weeks for me have been the most challenging weeks of my adult life.  I’ve had some tough realities to face, hard calls to make, and a roller coaster ride of emotions to accompany the two.  I now see the areas of my life in which I demonstrate strength.   And I also clearly see the areas of my life where I still need growth and development.  Both observations are so valuable and essential!

I also see how feelings can be real, but not always reality.  I may feel hurt or mistreated.  I may feel sad or depressed.  But feelings don’t always accurately depict the reality of our circumstances.  A friend of mine sent me a devotional earlier this week entitled, “What Have You Been Saying?”  The author poses the simple question,

“What have you been saying about your situation?” 

Sometimes, we can let our emotions and feelings overtake our thinking about a given situation.  That is what makes the difference between optimists and pessimists; realists and idealists; people of faith and people of fear.  We can remind ourselves that storm is passing over; no storm lasts forever.  But we choose to say “This is never going to end!”  We can speak of our situations in positive ways so that we encourage ourselves to keep going.  But we choose to be pitiful and say, “… my life is sucks!”  We can choose to see things not as they are, but as the can be.  But we choose to say, “This keeps getting worse.”  

I always say, “It is what it is.”  Life simply is what it is.  We call a spade a spade, a duck a duck, but we keep it moving.  We are entitled to our feelings and emotions.  But life has its own terms and if we let it, life can teach us so many wonderful lessons.  Good times are only good relative to bad times.  We can’t fully experience one without the other.  Stay in the moment, and learn to take life as it comes.  Until next time!