Turning tragedies into adventures
“Life is happening while we are busy making other plans” said John Lennon. We all are busy creating and managing our lives. And we all know that often our goals aren’t achieved the way we envisioned them. Sometimes not in time and mostly not exactly the way we wanted. And sometimes fate sends us a pleasant surprise. However, sometimes things go terribly wrong or life happens to us in a very challenging if not horrific way. And let’s be honest here, no one is 100% safe and protected. “It” can happen. God forbid it should. But it can. And those mini-catastrophes are already stressful enough, are they not?
The point I am trying to make is that no one can prevent tragedies from happening; they can find us no matter where we manage to hide. If they can’t find us outside, they will find us inside.
We can’t prevent what happens when it happens, but we do have absolute power to determine how we experience it.
Let’s take a mini-tragedy for an example. You and your family are scheduled to fly home from a great holiday and a nearby volcano decided to wake up in a bad mood. Grumpy volcano blows massive smoke, sand and all kinds of stuff in the air, so high and wide that air traffic is impossible. But you are scheduled to show up at work tomorrow! And your children need to go to school tomorrow! The forecast says that air traffic is expected to be possible again earliest in 3 days. To cover the distance of the long haul flight by ferries, trains and buses is insane, but so is waiting another 3 days.
Now you can go into a heart attack (you don’t because your family needs you), panic attack or all kind of dramas – and everyone would understand! You have to make all those phone calls, find another hotel or check train connections to the next available airport in operation. But are there flights available? And who pays for that? In your mind everything was so well figured out; flying home, sleep, nice breakfast, going to work… but now in one strike all nil and void.
A mindset of adventure
The enlightened reaction to this kind and all other kinds of tragedies is to frame everything that is happening in a mindset of adventure. “Uh, this is an unexpected adventure!” or “Uh, terrifically interesting! What adventure can await us behind these events!?” or “Wow, how adventurous life is playing out again; I wonder how this will expand and grow us!?”
You see my point? WE and no one else decides how we see things. If YOU don’t decide, then your past decides for you. Then you will see and consequentially experience the tragedy as you always have experienced tragedies. Again: if YOU don’t decide, then your past decides for you how you will see reality. Things happen and we experience them according to the lenses we choose to see them through.
The truth lies in the eyes of the beholder
What is funny is that most people believe that the familiar way of seeing things is truer than any other way. But that’s bullocks. Isn’t the old saying telling us since ages: “The truth lies in the eyes of the beholder”? Exactly. Then why are we maintaining points of view that leave us devastated, depleted, horrified and destroyed?
It is the ignorance with regard to the way we as human beings function. They didn’t teach you at school nor did your parents tell you. Up to now, you had no awareness of the fact that you are the creator of the mindset with which you experience what happens. After you are aware of that and have learned the simple ways to shift your mindsets, the only reason why you wouldn’t shift from a tragic mindset to an adventurous mindset is an unconscious righteousness with regard to what is and what not is true.
Turn any tragedy into an adventure
Drop it, my friend, it’s a bad and unnecessary belief. You and nobody need this. It’s old school from ignorant generations passed down over millennia. You are the future and the state of the art model of a human being. Study how you function and your way to a blissful existence is unblocked.
Not only for your sake but also for the people in your life, yes even for the world – if you do it, you inspire others to do the same. Turn any tragedy into an adventure. Who knows what’s behind the next corner anyway? Maybe you would never look if fate wouldn’t lovingly force you to. As Helen Keller said: “Life is an adventure or nothing”.
With <3, Marc