If you expect to fail, you will.
If you expect to succeed, you will.
That's how I live my life, with the expectation that I will succeed. Some days, it's easier to do that than others. When you come home from a long day of classes, to find a note taped on your door, and that note contains a positive pregnancy confirmation, with the words, "Sorry, Michael, but you have to tell her," and Michael is your husband, and the note is from your best friend... it can be hard to look past that moment and expect anything but disappointment.
When the doctor, after the fifth MRI, says, "We can't confirm that it's Multiple Sclerosis, but based on all your symptoms and all the tests, it probably is," it can be hard to look past that moment and expect anything but hardship.
When you wonder how you're going to make the house payment, let alone pay any of the other bills, and then the computer, on which your entire livelihood depends, crashes with an irrecoverable error, it can be hard to look past that moment and expect anything but loss.
When you look back at a life filled with abuse and deprivation, it can be hard to look past all those moments and expect anything but more of the same.
I make it my life mission to look past those moments, because they aren't what life is about.
Life is about looking at your child for the first time, knowing that in spite of being born 6 weeks early, and nearly dying because the doctors didn't catch the placental abruption as soon as they should have, that he's going to be okay.
Life is about watching that same tiny little boy grow up, and laugh and play and joke, and watching how smart he is.
Life is about those little moments when a stranger shows kindness. A new neighbor offers a stove, and when you can't use it because you don't have the right hook-up, says he'll keep an eye out for the right one for you, and he means it.
Life is about forgiving those people that hurt you, and realizing that while they did some pretty hurtful things, pain was never their intention, and everyone makes mistakes.
Life is about looking for opportunities, and seizing them when they come, no matter how small they might be.
If you expect to succeed, you will.
That's how I live my life, with the expectation that I will succeed. Some days, it's easier to do that than others. When you come home from a long day of classes, to find a note taped on your door, and that note contains a positive pregnancy confirmation, with the words, "Sorry, Michael, but you have to tell her," and Michael is your husband, and the note is from your best friend... it can be hard to look past that moment and expect anything but disappointment.
When the doctor, after the fifth MRI, says, "We can't confirm that it's Multiple Sclerosis, but based on all your symptoms and all the tests, it probably is," it can be hard to look past that moment and expect anything but hardship.
When you wonder how you're going to make the house payment, let alone pay any of the other bills, and then the computer, on which your entire livelihood depends, crashes with an irrecoverable error, it can be hard to look past that moment and expect anything but loss.
When you look back at a life filled with abuse and deprivation, it can be hard to look past all those moments and expect anything but more of the same.
I make it my life mission to look past those moments, because they aren't what life is about.
Life is about looking at your child for the first time, knowing that in spite of being born 6 weeks early, and nearly dying because the doctors didn't catch the placental abruption as soon as they should have, that he's going to be okay.
Life is about watching that same tiny little boy grow up, and laugh and play and joke, and watching how smart he is.
Life is about those little moments when a stranger shows kindness. A new neighbor offers a stove, and when you can't use it because you don't have the right hook-up, says he'll keep an eye out for the right one for you, and he means it.
Life is about forgiving those people that hurt you, and realizing that while they did some pretty hurtful things, pain was never their intention, and everyone makes mistakes.
Life is about looking for opportunities, and seizing them when they come, no matter how small they might be.
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