The Power of Transformation and Swinging Away

It amazes me how often I get wrapped up in my story about reality. “This sucks! Life couldn’t get any worse.” runs through my head just as often as “I am so blessed! Life couldn’t get any better.” What amazes me even more, though, is that both of those statements – and the sentiments behind them – can happen to me literally at the same time and about the same thing.

Some people relate to setbacks in their lives truly as setbacks. While I visit that deep, dark place from time to time, I choose not to stay there. Instead, I prefer to look at life’s disappointments and those events that don’t turn out the way I might like simply as opportunities to learn and grow. 

These disappointments, which do happen from time to time, simply are indications that my choices of the past may not have been as well-informed or thought out as they could have been. No wonder things don’t always turn out the way we might like. We don’t know what we don’t know when we make those choices! They do, however, turn out the way they are designed.

As the Rolling Stones once sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need.” Once I accept that without judgment or blame but simply as part of “what’s so” for me, I am then empowered with a peace of mind and sense of self-control that cannot exist in that other place. What happens happens for a reason, and it may even be a better outcome than I had originally envisioned if I just transform my thinking.

When I was a kid, I was a lousy baseball player. I was terrified that the kid pitchers would hit me, so I stood in the batter’s box fearful of getting hit, not standing tall ready to get a hit. Well, thirty years later, I’ve learned that when life throws me a curve ball that I should just swing away. I may not hit the pitch. I am way more likely to get a hit though if I swing away than if I cower away.

I got way more strikeouts than home runs playing baseball as a kid. Now, I’ve learned that it’s no different than seeing the two sides of the same coin about life. “I’m blessed!” “This sucks!” They literally are two sides of the same coin, so now I swing away when faced with disappointment or adversity. Let’s face it… I’ve got nothing to lose. You can’t win the game by striking out all the time, and maybe – just maybe – I’ll get lucky next time and hit it out of the park for a home run!