It’s not all about the glory.
But the seconds or minutes of glory that we sometimes get make all the other times bearable or even worthwhile.
Promise me you’ll do yourself a favor: Choose something that you feel is really important to accomplish. See it through to the very end no matter how hard it is. Revel in the glory of your accomplishment. Then remember that feeling when the hard times hit. You won’t regret it. I promise.
You don’t have to get gold in the Olympics or produce a number one hit single to feel the glory, by the way. Little things work too.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to make a two-tiered cake. Do it. And revel in the glory your kids will give you.
Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a language. Or get a degree in something. Or start a small business of your own.
Maybe you simply want to get fit and never thought for a second that you’d be able to run a whole ten kilometers. And then you register yourself in a 10km race to help motivate you to train, you run (even though you almost give up in the middle of it), you finish the race with only two people behind you, but you did it! Revel in the glory of that achievement. Or don’t, like me. That “accomplishment” made me feel like absolute crap. It made me feel like I was the slowest person on planet Earth. So I decided I was going to do another race and get faster. And I did! THEN I reveled in the glory, looking back at where I came from and how hard I worked to get here.
I’ve been so fortunate to have my little moments of glory. I worked damned hard to achieve them too. And because of all that, I know I can get myself through anything.
I’ve been going through a rough patch lately. There’s nothing dramatically disastrous happening in my life. It’s just a lot of little, not-remotely-disastrous things. But a lot of little things can make us feel on edge or down or frustrated. I often find myself interpreting those emotions as failure. But I’ve had moments of glory. I KNOW I’m not a failure.
My formerly dislocated now chronic-pain-inducing frozen shoulder isn’t helping. I think it’s actually one of the main things that’s bringing me down these days. Imagine what it’s like having tinnitus (a constant ringing in your ears) for as long as you can remember and then add onto that a constant background pain lasting for months. Then add to that limited mobility of your whole upper arm, affecting almost every single activity that you do. None of that is major. It really isn’t. I know how to mentally block out the tinnitus. I can generally deal with the pain, which is only rarely significantly painful. I’ve found out I can do a whole lot more with my left arm than I would have expected. There are lots of sports-related activities I can’t do, but I’ve managed to hold onto one-armed spinning. I’ve seen a consultant and we’ll be looking into a solution that might decrease the amount of time it takes for this to go away. Then I’ll have to go through more pain and lots of physiotherapy. But DUDE. I’ve climbed a mountain! I’ve cycled across a continent! Frozen shoulder is child’s play compared to that.
Ok. Maybe it’s not child’s play. Maybe dealing with this is even more difficult than cycling across a continent. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not a competition. I’ve done shit. I know I can deal with pain and hardship. I know I can see things through to the end. I know there is glory at the end of the long, dark tunnel and I will get to that glory and then revel in it.
So I’m going through a rough patch. But that’s all right. Because I know I can do this. I know I have the inner strength even if it doesn’t always feel that way. These days might not be my glory days but I’m going to have more glory days. I’ll get myself there.
And if I can, you can too. Go do yourself that favor. You won’t regret it.
Inner Workings of My Mind 