IT TAKES A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF COURAGE to live life, bravery in the face of constant and often overwhelming challenges. Like life-threatening illness and eventual ostomy surgery. In most areas of endeavor, cowards don’t succeed, unless they’re politicians, but then they’ve chosen a profession mandating cowardice. The rest of us, through all the often-undeserved hurdles that fate plops into our path, we keep on keeping on. “Life can only be understood backwards,” wrote Sören Kierkegaard, “but it must be lived forward.” I think he was overly optimistic with respect to understanding our past. All the countless times I’ve gone over past experience in my head, and there is still much I don’t get. Why did I do that? It made no sense! There are just too many things that impact our backward glances: faulty memory, ego, a history of drug use, overactive imagination, and conflict of interest to cite a few. That’s why I also take issue with the old saying about hindsight being 20/20. That’s overly optimistic nonsense. Or world-class delusion. An untalented athlete, for instance, is likely kidding himself, after his loss, by thinking…if only I’d practiced two more hours a day. It can be really hard to be honest with yourself. I have a friend who always wanted to be a stand-up comedian. He became a Circuit Judge instead. I think there’s a joke in there somewhere.
Another thought provoking post Henry....and I have the punch line for you. Hope you don't mind?
"They laughed when I said I was going to do stand-up comedy, well they're not laughing now!"
Keep well.
V.J.😷
MeetAnOstoMate is a remarkable community of 41,451 members.
“I found real people, real humor, and answers I couldn’t get anywhere else.”
“The support here impressed my husband’s medical team - they plan to recommend it.”
“This community saved me when I thought I was a freak. Now I’m thriving.”
“Thank god for this site - I finally knew what to ask my surgeon.”
Hello and welcome to meet an ostomate. The site charges a fee only for Full Membership, you can still interact with members here via the forums and the public chat room with free membership. The site charges a fee since it has expenses ... as do all websites, people have to spend their time to run and maintain the site, buy bandwith, servers, and other things. I am a life member here, it cost me 56$....about the price of 1 cup of coffee a week for a year. I think that is a very small charge for such a big reward. In my opinion this site is the best ostomy-related web site on the net. I hope you will stick around awhile and see for yourself. I do not own or am I in any manner connected to this site except as a member. regards. mmsh
Learn about the physical and emotional benefits of using ostomy accessories.
Hello henryM.
Thanks for bringing this concept to the fore, as it seems to be one of several useful aspects of life to contemplate a little more fully.
In days gone by, when I needed to help people grasp the importance of some of the fundamentals of 'going forward' in life, the concept of 'looking forward' was one which seemed to be important.
I have already documented this elswhere (as 'Concept 4. views'), so I'll try to reproduce it below:
Best wishes
Bill
PS: Unfortunately I cannot seem to download this page as it's in the wrong format and I am not computer literate enough to get around the problem. Thus, this is one where I'll have to give up and not look back!