When Things Go Wrong

When things go wrong in life, it can feel like your world is falling apart. I’ve been there. There is an amazing quote by one of my favorite authors Pema Chödrön who said:

“It made me laugh to see that, just as I had so often said, making friends with our own demons and their accompanying insecurity leads to a very simple, understated relaxation and joy.” It’s so true. One of the greatest skills we can learn in our lives is to embrace our fears and the ensuing challenging times that follow as true opportunities for growth rather than something we need to avoid at all costs. Many people through out my life have called me “Brave” however the truth is that deep inside I have always felt unsure and insecure. The difference is that I would forge ahead and do what I knew in my heart had to be done anyway.

To me, being brave IS NOT about having no fear, it’s about feeling the fear and then doing what needs to be done.

How To Deal With Fear

In the wise words of my friend Seth David Chernoff, “Death is inevitable, life is not.”

A lesson I have recently learned myself.

Not everyone in this life is lucky enough to experience true love.

But we will all experience true pain.

It’s the one common denominator that links each of us to the other as people. Any successful comic will tell you that real funny can only come from real pain. I’ll never forget my father once telling me to… “never regret anything that made me smile because none of us where going to get out this alive.” He was right. But what he never told me about was just how painful life can be and the reasons why.

That would take me another 25 years to figure out on my own. The really hard way.

Through out my life I have always used laughter as a way to avoid pain. Like many, when ever an awkward situation would occur I would make light of it to try and lessen the blow. I’ve learned over the years that people (myself included) will do almost anything to avoid pain. I know I certainly did. We don’t understand emotional pain. No one ever talks to us about it. It’s not taught in school and so we are just left to our own devices and herein lies the root of our social problem.