Never Say Never

In everyone’s life, there will come times where you no doubt go through what some people refer to as ‘never moments’. These are the moments when everything seems difficult and overpowering. When the situation seems to be going from bad to worse and nothing is working out right. Times when its all too hard and too much and there just appears to be no end in sight. Basically when you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom and things will ‘never’ change. Its these moments that test us and which were the subject of a speech that I heard recently. Actually, I heard it twice, which would probably explain why it stuck with me. Apparently, when you’re in the midst of these ‘never moments’, you should never do the following:

Never let yourself be overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. Many people are faced with immense obstacles to overcome in their life and they balk at the sheer size of what comes before them. Its often kind of hard to take a step back and take a second look but the size of something is largely to do with your perspective. When a burden is hard to bear, it is all too easy to keep your head down as you desperately try not to trip over but I have been assured that its just as important to lift your head up and take a look around as well. If nothing else, you won’t have to worry about a double chin while you’re doing it.

Another thing to be conscious of is to never give up too soon. When things are not going your way it can be way too tempting to take a step back and say I won’t beat my head against a brick wall today. I won’t put myself on the line again because I don’t believe it will get better. Apart from risking a self-fulfilling prophecy though, you could be missing out on something amazing. Life is in the details and is neither easy nor fair most of the time. Everything does change eventually however and there is a world full of possibilities out there. Just ask Alisa Camplin who won a bronze medal after returning to the snow (post knee reconstruction) little more than a month out from the Torino Games!

The next step is to never let yourself get isolated. I’ve known people (and I’m not immune to this one either), who like to withdraw when things get tough. In order to try and escape some of life’s slaps and catch our breath, we shut down, and whilst we manage to avoid the negative council that people with too much time on their hands sometimes offer, we miss out on all the good stuff too. We make things harder on ourselves by not being able to take advantage of the people who can really help. To remain connected however, we actually have a two-fold responsibility. We are not only responsible for letting others into our life and allowing them to come to know us but also for reaching out and being a presence in other people’s lives. Silence is unfortunately translated as a ‘don’t care’ and no one needs to hear that when the chips are down.

The final point that was made in the speech was that you should never accept a bad ending to your story. Only you get to decide where the commas and the full stops go in your life. In grammar, a comma represents a pause. It also indicates that the sentence is not yet finished and is yet to be completed. In life, a comma may represent the moment at which you take stock and things turn around. Bad stuff can certainly happen to you, no one is saying it won’t, but just because things get hard or times are difficult, that doesn’t mean the sentence will end there. That was probably the most meaningful point for me. We all have issues in life whether they be in our relationships or in other areas. If something is truly getting you down though, sometimes you have to listen to the advice of others and ‘never say never’. After all, as we all know, it definitely ain’t over till the fat lady sings.