There is a verse in the Bible—and I know I’ve lost you from that but walk with me, okay?—that implores us to consider the lilies and how they grow. They don’t labor or spin. They just are. And then in an interesting metaphor, that passage goes on to say even Solomon in all his splendor—and boy did that dude have a LOT of splendor—was not nearly as splendor-filled as lilies.
You can see where I’m going, right?
Ha.
There is a lot of pain in this world. There is a LOT of it. You know it, I know it. You have it, I have it. Part of what makes us alive, part of what makes us living, breathing things is that we inevitably have some pain. That we have some challenges. What sets us apart from each other—well, apart from generational wealth, participants in varying systems of just and unjust governments, and luck—is the mindset with which we approach these problems. If this is getting to the part where it sounds like a cliché, just walk with me, please. I once heard the famous therapist, Lori Gottlieb, say something so profound. And then when I read her book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone—and everyone should read this PHENOMENAL BOOK—I read the expanded version. In essence, the point her therapist through her made was everyone is going to have to feel pain. Life happens. You lose your job. You get a divorce. You hate your job. You hate your spouse. You can’t have kids. You can’t find a spouse. You run out of money. And these are the ones that are technically fixable, never mind the life-shattering, life-altering pains. There are then little pains on top of the main, heavy pains. So that will happen. But you actually don’t have to suffer. While you cannot really choose the pain, you can most definitely choose the suffering.
