A Life Lesson
The moral of this story is: When life is bad, hang in there. It can get a lot
better.
In the winter of 1981, things were not going well for me. Seven years earlier, my mother had left my father for a younger man, fracturing our family. I had finished college, but did not know what to do next. My apartment in Boston’s Back Bay had just burned up, destroying most of my possessions. After the fire, I moved to a tiny room that overlooked the subway tracks and shook whenever a train went by. The room smelled like the dirty alley it was on. I missed the fresh air of my college town and gained 30 pounds because I did not get outdoors much. I was in a bad relationship with a woman who liked to criticize me in public. Most significantly, my wonderful father had died two years before, taking away my foundation. I was unhappy, discouraged, and angry at my life.
Five years later, I had finished a graduate degree in my chosen field, met the woman I would marry, and lost the weight as a bicycle racer. Five years after that, my wife and I were living on a tree-lined street and enjoying the birth of our first child. Ten years later, we had two wonderful children and were making plans to travel to China to adopt a third. Throughout this time, I had a series of interesting jobs, leading to a successful consulting business. Life was good.
What happened, from a low point in life to being a lucky guy with everything I wanted? I am not the most insightful person, and certainly was not the most mature at the time. While trying to improve my situation, I often took two steps forward, then one step backward. I made many mistakes. Along the way though, I learned some things that might be useful to other people.
Solve one small problem at a time. It is not possible to improve all aspects of your life in a week, or a month. So pick one problem that may have a reasonably easy solution. My first step was to move out of the dismal room to a large, airy house I shared with several other people. Our personalities sometimes clashed, and the house was chilly and drafty in the winter, but overall, it was much nicer than my room on the alley. My bedroom was sunny during the day and quiet at night. We had a front porch where we could sit on nice days and a small backyard where some of us planted a garden. A few months after moving in, I set up an exercise bicycle in an unused portion of the basement, and used the bike to start getting back into shape. This was a step toward solving a second problem. Later, I investigated graduate courses in computer science, which seemed to be a career direction I wanted to pursue, making progress on a third problem.
Write down a few long-term goals and don’t lose sight of them. You won’t accomplish these goals quickly – they are long-term after all – and you will stumble sometimes. But knowing where you are going, or having a reasonable guess at where you are going, is a big help. You don’t have to show your list to anyone. My goals were: advancement in the computer field, a happy marriage and family, and physical fitness. You might be uncertain about all of your goals, but there must be some things you want that you don’t have now. Otherwise, you would be completely satisfied with your life as it is.
If you are stuck, find a good therapist. Stuck means that you have tried to solve a problem in every way you can think of, and the problem still remains. The therapist who is best for you might be a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a social worker, or a clergy member trained in counseling. But shop around for someone whom you click with. You are purchasing a service. There is no need to be rude, but you should be assertive to find someone who meets your needs. I met with a psychologist who insisted, just into our first conversation, that the answer to my problems was to develop a great relationship with a woman. Besides the fact that this was not true at the time, he had no basis to make this judgment from our brief discussion. I talked to another therapist who seemed like a truly nice guy, but I did not feel he “got” my issues, so I continued to shop. After some looking, I found a psychologist who was helpful to me and I stuck with this relationship for quite a while.
It is difficult for anyone, especially men, to admit the need for a therapist. But ask yourself this question: Between the following two alternatives, which is the smart choice?
· Trying to solve a problem by repeating the same actions, over and over, even after you have seen that they don’t work.
· Getting advice from someone who has experience helping people in similar situations.
Here is my therapist-selection criterion: A bad therapist wants to tell you the answers; a good therapist helps you find the answers you already know.
Avoid big mistakes. As I mentioned, I made quite a few mistakes in my 20s and early 30s. I dated women whom I had little in common with. I quit a job that was actually not so bad. I got in some pointless arguments with my housemates. But I never did anything that was hard to reverse – such as marrying the wrong person, becoming an alcoholic or drug addict (as members of my extended family have), giving up on finding a better job, or accepting poor health. You cannot be perfect as you try to improve your life. But reserve a small part of your brain to watch out for doing something stupid. Many life decisions are reversible, but some are a lot harder to change than others.
Keep in mind that life can be better. I clearly recall walking down my dead-end street one afternoon in the winter of 1981, heading toward the depressing room I lived in after the fire. My friends lived in other cities. My career was stalled. There was no green grass or fresh air in sight. I missed my father. All in all, I felt pretty lousy. But, even though it seemed far away, I remembered that life had felt better before. I had enjoyed the town I grew up in, and my schools, and my friends and hobbies. I remembered being happy. A large part of that memory came from my relationship with my father, who had a positive, fun attitude toward life. That vision, that life was supposed to feel better, gave me the incentive to make some changes. And I now understand that this was just one of the many times my father has helped me after he died.
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The early 1980s were probably my hardest years. They were also the start of the best time in my life. So when life is bad, hang in there. It can get a lot better.
Copyright 2006, Charles H. Connell Jr.