my doctor phil imitation...

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who wasn’t happy with the way things were going in his life.  He changed the subject before I got the chance to tell him something that I had learned that had helped me.  I’m hoping he’ll read this and learn what I did.

One Christmas season several years ago, I was broke as a joke.  I had gotten laid off from a job that I hated but paid the bills, and nobody was getting gifts that year.  I remember being depressed and upset and having all sorts of feelings, but more than anything, I remember being sick and tired.

Talk about an overused phrase, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!”  The fact is, most people really aren’t sick or tired of what’s going wrong with their lives, because if they were, they’d do something about it.  But the most that people usually do about a bad situation is telling anyone who will listen.

That day, I didn’t have anyone to talk to but myself, and I didn’t feel much like listening to what I had to say, especially since what I had to say to myself was pretty harsh: I was a college dropout living in his parents’ basement, who hadn’t worked hard at or followed through with anything in my life up to that point – I was broke because of me.  I had allowed other people and/or fate to control my life, and until that day, I hadn’t really cared where I ended up or had simply resigned myself to whatever situation I found myself in.

The refrigerator in the house I grew up in was probably like any other refrigerator you’d find in a house with kids.  No matter what it contained on the inside, the outside was covered with papers held up by magnets.  In my house, the little blue glass magnet contained a prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

As a child, I never really gave it much thought or even paid much attention to it but in hindsight, that little blue glass magnet stuck to more than the refrigerator door.

In Hollywood, epiphany comes along with a choir and a beam of light, but in Chicago, and on my budget, it came silently in the dark in the form of that prayer.

Of course there are things in life that you don’t have any control over, shit happens and u just have to deal with it.  On the other hand, there are things that you can control and you have to handle your business.  But before anything, you have to understand which things are which.  Sounds simple, but when you think about all the people who claim to be “sick and tired of being sick and tired”, it might as well be quantum physics.  

I was really sick and tired that day, and instead of just promising to myself that I’d never find myself in this position again, I did some things.  Some of the things worked and some didn’t, but eventually I found a job that became a successful career for me.  I can’t take credit for creating all the opportunities that came my way; I had lots of help from family, friends and strangers along the way.  What I do take credit for is getting off my ass and making something happen in my life instead of waiting for something to happen to me.

What I want my friend to learn is that he has to do something, anything, to change his situation for the better.  It doesn’t have to be monumental or profound, it doesn’t even have to work; it just needs to be a step in the direction he wants his life to go.  Then, and here comes the hard part, he has to keep doing things until he’s where he wants to be, then do more things to keep his life where he wants it to be.  Along the way he’ll make mistakes and suffer setbacks, but hopefully he also will learn things (persistence, for one) and grow and help other people.

After all that, no matter what, I believe his life will be better.  I sincerely hope I’m right.

p.s. a few hours after I posted this blog, the following quote of the day showed up on my Google homepage (I guess it’s not a doctor Phil imitation after all):

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”  - George Bernard Shaw