25 Jan 2016

Remember This When Life Throws You A Curveball

I requested the instructor to let me do a few light exercises and stretches. I had two bowls of banana chips before hitting the gym that day (yes I know, I got carried away).

He had other ideas.

Forty five minutes, 25 burpees, 40 pushups, 200 mountain runs, infinite squats, jumping jacks and skipping jumps later, I crawled out of the gym on my butt. Sweat dripped from my eyebrows and my t-shirt was soaking wet. The air beautifully cool and refreshing. I generally love this feeling after a workout. Only, today I was ready to puke.

Somehow, I got to my feet and sat on the stairs. The banana chips were at war with my throat, and would win the battle any minute. Survival of the toughest. Or is it fittest? I can’t remember.

The instructor joined me. “What happened?” he asked. I revolved my palm in front of my chest indicating that I wanted to throw up.

“Don’t worry, hang in there for a few minutes,” he said. “It will be okay.”

"I will feel better if I puke", I used my hands to tell him.

"Nope, just hang in there. Breathe."

Five minutes later, I was back on my feet, and back in the gym for an awesome session of stretching. I didn’t throw up.

Often (rather almost every time), life throws a curveball at us. Where we err is in giving up or giving in too early. Things are not dismal as they appear. Trust me. Yes, they go bad, but they’re just detours. And a detour does not mean that we stop our journey or turn back. It simply means that the journey might take us longer. Might as well enjoy our time on the way because we could experience something beautiful.

Ready?
My neighbor sums it up brilliantly when she says, “Our mind wants to feel important. If something good occurs, it perches on Cloud 9. On the other hand, if something bad occurs, it makes us feel like the world will collapse on us.”

Hang in there. Too many people don’t know how close they were to their goals when they gave up. In the end, it will be okay.

Nothing is as good, or as bad, as our mind makes it. The biggest problem with life is the image in our mind of how it is ‘supposed to be’. It’s okay to want life to be a certain way, but it’s also okay to be okay with how life turns out. Because in the end, everything will be okay.

Yes, sometimes, life takes really really ugly turns. At such times, remember what Steve Jobs said: “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Jeff Haden writes, “Perspective always clears away the fog. When we look forward, the path seems uncertain and the future unpredictable. When we look back, all the dots seem to connect.”

The darkest hours of your life right will teach you valuable lessons. They will make you stronger, unless you are the ‘must-hold-on-firmly-to-my-past’ type. I speak from experience. Every painful event in my life - which I felt I could never recover from - has made me better. In fact, the biggest blunder I committed (more on that a few years later) put me on the path to entrepreneurship, something I had been putting off for years.

The wound is the place where the light enters you. - Rumi

Remember, dear friend, that whatever happens today will be okay. Just have faith and hang in there. Don’t give up on hope or on your life.

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