I had dinner, well more like a snack with a friend this evening. We’ve known each other thirty years. Our conversation started simply enough, but some how took a familiar turn for me, and it made be think some things. The conversation pinged on my somewhat sensitive patient Achilles heel. I offer up the following thoughts.
Being sick sucks, having a great family and friends, a job you love, a life you appreciate doesn’t mean that being sick can’t still suck. These things can mutually exist, acknowledging one does not mean you are denying the other.
I am very much a believer in positive thinking, but acknowledging that something is hard or bad, does not mean that you are not thinking positively. Not thinking positively in my mind is thinking that the hard times are unchangeable, not that they don’t exist.
So I offer up as the patient who over the years has been read a long laundry list of the gifts in my life that I need to remember and concentrate on during hard times…I do not forget what I have, but I can not forget what I don’t have. It is this unrest that makes change happen. There shouldn’t be any guilt in feeling and saying that something that is bad…is bad, but always believe it can change.
JUL
2008