My friend Jami recently brought my attention to this blog: Love in the Time of Foreclosure. It's the open-book documentation of a husband and wife out in California who are staring into the eyes of foreclosure and figuring out how to get by on so, so, so much less than before. Heartbreaking, huh? But here's the kicker: they're happier than ever before.
Like one of my favorite (mostly nonfiction) books from the 1990s, Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the author of LITTOF is moving ahead and only looking forward. There's not a lot for any of us to gain by playing the What If game, is there?
So, how in the the face of such adversity do you find happily ever after? Well, for starters, you change the way you define your own happiness. ASAP. A few months back, I scribbled down this quote from an interview with Michael J. Fox, who said:
"Happiness grows in direct proportion to your acceptance and inverse proportion to your expectations. This is what I have today . . . I don't have a choice about this, but I have a million other choices. And if I choose well, I'm going to be a happy person."
Fox recently authored a book of his own, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, which is all about his way of viewing challenges as opportunities. Look up or lose out, I say. Give up fighting, but don't give up on the fight.
Accept. Surrender. Make lemonade. Whatever you want to call it. Just don't call it a loss. Maybe its just the beleaguered breadwinner in me talking, but adversity is one heck of an influential teacher, don't you think. (Though, for the record, I think I'm ready to graduate . . .)
_________________________________________________________________________ © 2009 Good Karma Housekeeping. Because less really is more. (photo © Stephanie Walker)
Related posts: Plenty Is a Mindset The Haves and the Have Nots
