Topic: coping
"If I had to live life like that, I'd just have them give me a big pill and be done with it." The man was speaking to my husband in the locker room of a sports club, where they'd just finished a water yoga class.
Ron wasn't insulted, just shocked. Amazing to think how often we may all give up on the possibility of coping with something that we think would be impossible--even long before we encounter it. We imagine the worst and play the scene with all the awful things that may be entailed in a situation.
"Oh, but I'm enjoying life in so many ways!" Ron responded immediately. Then, came home to marvel at this guy's reaction. It made me think that, in all likelihood, this is how a lot of people see life in a chair. Perhaps this is why eyes are averted and people are ignored or the passerby talks to me, as if I'm the only one who has a life or an opinion. This is something we adjusting to, something we are coming to understand, leading us to find new ways of communicating with others.
This very much relates to how often we can, if feeling powerless, pass by the opportunities that we have to speak in a poignant and polite manner to people of more power and/or people who are closed-minded about a matter that we have come to understand through experience, giving them opportunity to see things in a little different way. Think you can't do it. Well, maybe you CAN. Never know until you try.
