Having a "Wake-Up" Call
This busy work schedule has given me very little time to blog these days. I miss writing, and reading all of your own thoughts, but my job has turned full time, and leave little time for anything else these days. Nevertheless, I am happy, appreciate the work I have and feel good for today. I promise to get around to reading more blogs this weekend.
Many people have experienced something in life which propels them to action (or maybe in-action, as the case may be.) Often, it can be something quite personal, effecting one's health, welfare or emotions. Usually these events make us pause, take stock, and call us to make some type of change in our own lives. It is like hearing the sound of the shofar for Jews, this piercing, penetrating and beautiful sound that wakes us up! Often, it may involve getting rid of something or someone, and examples, can range from substance abuse, alcohol, sex addiction, health scares, threats of financial insecurity, illness, and the list goes on and on. What usually results is that these events make us look and evaluate our own lives from a different perspective. We conclude that we must make changes, something must be given up, or something else must be sought, and we look around us at what we have, rather than what we do not, and we become grateful for all of life's blessings instead of feeling as if our lives are empty and barren.
I have had various wake up calls in my life. Most recently,there have been a couple personal issues regarding people, and one having to do with my own health. Additionally, the illness of my daughter daughter last year woke me up in a very big way. Prior to that, I took good health for granted, not ever feeling as if anything bad could happen to any of my children. Now, I truly look at each good day as a great gift, cherish it, and make every effort to live it fully, thanking God for all the good that I have in my life. In a similar light, when I think that all is going terribly for me, I remember what it means to lose something. I look around me at those who died during the Holocaust, and admire the strength and tenacity of those who were able to survive these horrors, and feel, that by comparison, nothing in my life can ever be so horrible or so bad. Gratitude can be relative, and at the same time so individual, depending upon our state of mind.
Here is the question for the day: What has been a wake-up call for you during your life? How has it propelled you to action, to better your life and be of service to others?
Thank you for your minds.
Many people have experienced something in life which propels them to action (or maybe in-action, as the case may be.) Often, it can be something quite personal, effecting one's health, welfare or emotions. Usually these events make us pause, take stock, and call us to make some type of change in our own lives. It is like hearing the sound of the shofar for Jews, this piercing, penetrating and beautiful sound that wakes us up! Often, it may involve getting rid of something or someone, and examples, can range from substance abuse, alcohol, sex addiction, health scares, threats of financial insecurity, illness, and the list goes on and on. What usually results is that these events make us look and evaluate our own lives from a different perspective. We conclude that we must make changes, something must be given up, or something else must be sought, and we look around us at what we have, rather than what we do not, and we become grateful for all of life's blessings instead of feeling as if our lives are empty and barren.
I have had various wake up calls in my life. Most recently,there have been a couple personal issues regarding people, and one having to do with my own health. Additionally, the illness of my daughter daughter last year woke me up in a very big way. Prior to that, I took good health for granted, not ever feeling as if anything bad could happen to any of my children. Now, I truly look at each good day as a great gift, cherish it, and make every effort to live it fully, thanking God for all the good that I have in my life. In a similar light, when I think that all is going terribly for me, I remember what it means to lose something. I look around me at those who died during the Holocaust, and admire the strength and tenacity of those who were able to survive these horrors, and feel, that by comparison, nothing in my life can ever be so horrible or so bad. Gratitude can be relative, and at the same time so individual, depending upon our state of mind.
Here is the question for the day: What has been a wake-up call for you during your life? How has it propelled you to action, to better your life and be of service to others?
Thank you for your minds.
9 Comments:
First let me say I love reading your posts. I found your blog from surfing and love what I'm reading. As far as a wake-up call goes I'd have to say that being in my 40's and feeling that life was empty for me hit me like a ton of bricks. Some would call it living your regrets or male menopause or a host of other labels. But facing up to the fact that I needed to take control of my life and my happiness and deal with my self-anger was definitely a turning point for me. I've still got a ways to go.
I smoked heroin with a date one night many many years ago.
I woke up in the morning realizing this is how so many people I loved died,from drugs.
I have been clean since.
I also write alot about drugs,belong to an organization that promotes recovery and grief support to families.
I have my blog.
I do not drink,do drugs or smoke.
And I share this with you.
Thank you for your sharing too.
Mmmmm. At this moment I'm trying to amend fence between my husband and his brother with out stepping on toes very hard. I know their a fairly good chance I'll step on toes.
To get to my main objection I think it would be awful for one them to take it to the grave.
My wake up call was when my father died.. and i felt alone and i realized that i have always made it alone... I wished my father and mother could have been better parents but i survived... And i said to myself the day he died that i would bury any shame, embarrasment or fear that i had in that coffin with him. So did. Today i am a better person because i realize i was always my biggest cheerleader and as long as i had a relationship with the most high, rather people call it God, Allah, Buddah or the many other names it is refered to i will be ok.... I came to terms that all i needed was inside of me. So i stopped being so shy and afraid....
Having jaw surgery was a real wake up call for me. I had a calcium deposit on the end of my jaw bone. It was the size of a golf ball and it had to be taken out. Three months later I had another surgery where they took out one of my ribs and fashioned it into a new jaw bone. I realized that God loved me and took care of me while I was going thru all of this. I knew it all along, but this just proved it to me. It was also pretty scary to go thru.
Dramatic experiences, in our lives, make us sit up and take notice. It's like a "wake-up call" to remind us to not take life for granted.
Three things.
By the time I graduated from high school, seven kids in my class had died: one drowned, one succumbed to aplastic anemia, two died in a freak carbon monoxide poisoning accident, one had a heart attack, one (my locker partner) was raped and murdered, and one committed suicide. It left my classmates and me with the permanent conviction that we could be next. So those deaths were the wakeup call that life isn't permanent and we aren't invincible.
Then, when I was 30 I was diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease that called for the destruction by radiation of my thyroid gland, which controls metabolism. I have to be on thyroid hormone for the rest of my life, and if I get stranded somewhere without it, my body will slowly shut down and die. Going through all of that made me realize that my health is of primary importance.
Lastly, having my daughter 12 weeks ago opened my eyes to the kindness in the world around me. People can be so nice if you'd just give them a chance. I've realized too that even the people I dislike most are capable of great tenderness; I've seen it in the way they act around their children.
The first two wakeups for me were warnings that hardened or strengthened me, but the last wakeup has softened me. I think it's the one I appreciate most because I needed a little softening. :-)
Life is a series of wake-up calls or at least it should be.
Hopefully, we are always evolving into a better human being or helping others to do so.
The biggest wake-up call for me was when my own child was raped at 12 years of age. Along with her, I was changed forever.
It seems like life was just LA_DE_DAH before that.
I learned to get tough to protect my family.
I learned that, when we are stabbed in the heart, it heals over, but we are never the same, again.
Well, it started here, but it wasn't like I snapped out of it in one fell swoop. I was slow to rise... it took about three to five years and some intervention of a different sort to finally and fully arouse.
Having said that, I have no regrets - it's what it took for me to find my way finally - and I am truly grateful not just for where I am, but for the journey!
Thanks for the reflection;-')
~ Mike
I agree...Life is a series of wake up calls, in some form or other. Usually, it is a painful event that opens our eyes the widest.
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