Things That Have, Never Before, Happened

When I fall back a little…when I stop from anticipating outstanding, even for a day….I look for evidence to re-inspire me to keep overachieving.  To keep anticipating extraordinary.

This week the Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship for the first time in their franchise’s 24-year history.   The St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup Championship for the first time in their 52-year history.

Things can be done that have never been done before.  Things can be done that nobody thought possible.  Things can be done when people keep anticipating extraordinary.

Rock this life!!!

Mistaken Angst

I think, for so many of us, there is such great fear and dread and anger for our futures because we fear that now Fate has tipped the scales against us.  That we will now and forever be measured from behind the eight ball.   That we will always be counted pennies short on the dollar.  That we will live unfair lives from here on out.

The truth is that, for those of us who did not suffer greatly-altering frontal lobe injuries that might prevent us from choosing our behaviors, we have been angst-ridden mistakenly.

Thank God.

In the end and until the end, we won’t be measured for brain injury or not.   We won’t be measured by how we fail to duplicate those lives we lived before.

That’s only in our heads.

We will be measured by things that are available to most all of us, still.

We will be measured like the one who can still work 80 hours a week and coach his kids on weekends.  We will be measured like the professional athletes, the school teachers, the President of the United States…

We will be measured like your spouse, like your kids, like your friends and neighbors.

We will be measured by whether we gave good or bad.  Whether we chose dark or light.

We will be measured by how we impacted each day and each person we encountered.  Selfish or selfless.  Honest or devious.  Helpful or unobliging.

That is the truth.  Our truth.  One to embrace.  One to cherish.  One to celebrate and to be grateful for.

That is the truth.  🙂

Everyday Status

If you take a bit to actually look at the time line on your Facebook page, you’ll notice how, no matter what you post, everything makes its way down.  The greatest of achievements…the saddest of news…the cutest of goose videos….

All get bumped by newer things.

Unfortunately, for so many of us stuck in stalled recoveries, it’s like we wake up every day and go post on Facebook:

I sustained a brain injury!

We just keep re-setting each day and then, even if we DO post other new things, they are still never very far away from the last or the next post that we have a brain injury.

It anchors us to that bottom line.

If we posted that first day on Facebook that we had sustained a brain injury, chances are we would have received comments and emojis from virtually all of our family and friends.  Lots of sad and shocked emojis.  Lots of comments and cheers for a speedy recovery.

And then we’d post again.

And again.

You can imagine that, after several posts, there would be fewer comments.  Fewer responses.  Fewer emojis.  You might even start getting comments like, are you OK?  I’m worried about you….

People would tire of the same old post.  They might even unfriend you because the topic is a bummer and they would probably consider you to be a bummer, by then, too.

As it is on Facebook, we have to get out of our stuck place.  We have to stop starting each day with that one detail about us and start showcasing all the other facets in our shining diamond.  We have to allow our news to fall lower in our time line.  We must encourage it so by replacing it with newer things.  Fresh things to report.  Activities and accomplishments and special time spent with loved ones.  Every day.

Things that make us laugh.  Things that are new in our lives.  Things that are important to and about our loved ones.  Cute videos of goosie gooses, absolutely.

Life.

And living.