I can hardly believe that we are almost through the second week of November! This is always a busy month for us, since in addition to the usual happenings we have Tobin's "kid birthday party", his family party and Thanksgiving thrown in between. With so much going on, I've found myself doing less crafting and more "thrifty living", if you will.
This is the world we are living in today. Recently, I've had many friends whose spouses have lost their jobs. Some friends were thrifty to begin with, while others are adjusting to a new lifstyle based on a drastically reduced income. Thinking about these friends, the drama that found it's way into my life last monthand the way life can change in the blink of an eye, I suddenly remembered something from my undergraduate Crisis Intervention class. The cover of my text book had a Chinese character on it. The professor explained that there actually is not a character for Crisis, so the Chinese often substitute this symbol/word for the character which translates into "split path" or opportunity.
How random, and what an interseting way to look at the world. Instead of drowning in a crisis situation, we can adopt the attitude that whatever happened might just have been the catalyst or opportunity for us to change our lives, perhaps for the better? One friend told me about a trip to the grocery store she took, post layoff, and was so pleased with her smart shopping and what she was able to buy. In turning her crisis into an opportunity, she said how now she may need to shop this way, but once she and her husband are back on their feet, they will be better off for having learned to shop better.
We are constanly offered situations where it is as if the road forks off in front of us. It is here that we can make the decision to take the path that allows the situation to destroy us, or to take the path where we turn whatever the situation is into an opportunity to be better in some way. I think this is such a wonderful way to look at life as we beging the holiday season and ring in a new year. I'm sure it won;t always be easy to do, but this is the path I am choosing to take.
Have a wonderful weekend.
a.
Well said and I couldn't agree more. I really like your point about the Chinese character for crisis.
Posted by: Tammy | November 13, 2009 at 10:03 PM