A post entitled Your Hero’s Journey and Mine caught my eye recently. I found it conducive to the style of reflection leading to a greater perspective of one’s circumstances, and life story. As such it led me to pause and consider the story of my life in a new way.
My life seems a mangled mess at times. More than once I have thought it an unexciting line of successive episodes lacking direction and meaning. In short, I have often failed to board that plane of deeper reflection which allows one to see how one thing connects to another like roads converging on a map.
This skyward vantage point is a helpful place to visit from time to time. It is a great school bestowing insight and wisdom upon each traveler. Insights gained from above enable him to return home understanding essential truths to benefit moving forward.
This wisdom remains ignored for most of life. It is as if it sits encased within a box upon the wall bearing a warning label inscribed with, “Break in case of hardship” across its glass door. For it is when the lights of hope fade that the perspective gained in reflection shines the brightest.
On this point Pressfield offers the following:
Listen: no matter how crazy or down or preposterous your current state, it remains a passage toward the light. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t feel crazy.
Trust me. When the lights come on in the darkroom, what looks to you now like a negative will develop into the photo you’ve been searching for all along—a photograph of yourself.
I took a screenshot of the above words and shared them with my wife immediately upon reading them. They are so rich and poignant that they compel passing along. They are of the type one is unloving to conceal. They offer hope, perspective, and transport the heart’s countenance from despair to steadied resolve.
The difficult seasons of our lives are not vacant of meaning. As Spring follows Winter, so light follows dark. There is always meaning and purpose awaiting on the distant shore. The water may churn, thunder may clash, and you may fear to drown, but things will look different once your feet find the forgiving sands.
You will no doubt lay exhausted upon that survivor’s shore looking up at the gray skies above. As you regain some semblance of strength you will, in turn, sit up and cast your gaze back upon the thrashing sea you traversed. Your mind will drift back to the darkest and most fear-inducing moments of your journey with almost fond remembrance. It may take time, as perspective requires, but you will soon find that the struggle and pain of the journey formed and shaped the you.
One of my largest ongoing undertakings is to reshape how I view all the pain, all the suffering, and all the darkness that so often envelopes me. It is not random. It is not without purpose. It is not wasted. It is creating in me a change of character, a change of mindset, a change of heart. It is, in the end, shaping the man I am today, and who I will become moving forward.