Learning to see the wisdom in life’s challenges

PRIME – January 2015 By Debbie Gardner debbieg@thereminder.com There are lots of advice books out there that profess to help us find more fulfillment in our lives. I’ve read lots of them over the years, and even interviewed a few authors about their philosophies. Of the recent crop, the slim volume, “It’s A Juggle Out There: A Guide to a Better Balanced & More Fulfilling Life” by Greenfield resident Rob Peck resonated the most with me. I loved the advice he offered, especially his belief that obstacles are “put in our lives not to obstruct, but to instruct.” That phrase put me in mind of the many times I’ve tried to figure out what “lesson” life was trying to teach me when it tossed a curveball in my path. And like most people, life has tossed me – and my family – plenty of sinkers, screwballs and slurves (please forgive the baseball metaphors). It’s learning from those unexpected “pitches” and regrouping that sometimes presents challenges for us – especially in what Peck refered to as our “instant gratification culture.” During our conversation, Peck was especially concerned by the disconnect that today’s technology offers us – the ease of shooting off an email or text in lieu of a face-to-face conversation – and how this feeling of instant connectedness (we all have so many “friends” now) robs us of the life-balancing intimacy that comes with an actual face-to-face chat about an issue or problem. “I think that people get confused by convenience,” Peck said. “I think that [today’s instant lifestyle] leads to a quality of life that leads to more grasping than gratitude.” As Peck pointed out, “It takes a lot more delayed gratification to actually work it out; to be sitting with the other face-to-face, heart-to-heart.” I agree with Peck that today’s culture makes it hard to slow down and see the wisdom in the problem, and the value in taking the time to find a solution. We’re all guilty of looking for the quickest solutions to our daily challenges – myself included. We simply try to juggle faster. Fortunately for me, I’ve got a husband who believes in stepping back and looking at things from all angles. His favorite saying is, “There are always possibilities.” As for me, I’m still working on seeing the possibilities in challenges – or as Peck says, the instructions that come with those obstacles. Much like the advice in Peck’s book, I drew inspiration from columnist Jane O’Donoghue’s story this month, in which she wrote about her mother, Catherine (see page 19). The challenges Catherine confronted – including facing widowhood with six children during the Depression – and the way she overcame them, put me in mind of some of my own family history. I’ve many times heard the tales of dresses made of sugar bags, of hunting squirrels for suppers, and of money sent home to Europe for safekeeping before the Depression that were repaid over many years, a few dollars at a time. It’s easy to forget that times may have been tough in the past for our parents and grandparents – the recent economic downturn notwithstanding – life has been fairly prosperous for most people in the decades since World War II. We’ve come to expect things to be easy, and good. Given that kind of life experiences, the curveballs life throws at us can be tougher to recover from. But with those curveballs come wisdom – and a building of the spirit. Dr. Victor Acquista talks about acquiring just that kind of wisdom from life experiences in his column this month. His take on how wisdom can come to us in unexpected places offers another kind of inspiration. It’s good reading. You’ll find his story on page 13 of this issue. As always, I hope you enjoy all the stories in this issue. In fact, I’m always looking for good story ideas! If you have a suggestion, please email me at debbieg@thereminder.com, or send me your thoughts at : PRIME Editor 280 North Main St. East Longmeadow, MA 01028