EVERY DAY GRATUATION

TODAY'S QUOTE:
Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference. - Arie Pencovici

The school of hard knocks is an around the clock institution. There are no scheduled holidays or summer breaks. The classes vary and the teachers come and go at an astonishing rate. Most of us weave in and out as lessons are learned, but others never really leave. They evolve from student to teacher then back again over and over... never graduating and never achieving tenure. I am proud to be a member of the lifers. Not because of prestige or material gain, but due to the simple fact that helping others elevates my own pain to a level that makes every wounding worth the agony.

Listing of my shortcomings or pointing fingers at any certain offender would only invite the negatives to harden like cement shoes and drowning would be my certain fate. I choose to suggest positives that littered my battlefield in a fashion that will apply in a universal way to as many of the walking wounded as I can reach. I do not do so for worldly gain... I do it because it is my life's purpose.  I do it because God gave me a gift and He takes away what we do not willingly share with others. I do it for my souls health and I do it for yours as well.

When a brutal lesson begins it does us no favor to fight against its arrival as if we have any choice whatsoever to stop its forward motion. We try to shove it away and when that does not help we run as if outdistancing it is even a possibility. Our pain is certain, but its duration is not. Our scars are mandatory, but their depth is totally optional according to the speed of our adjustment to our ever changing reality. The quicker we recognize the lesson the faster we can absorb it. The greater focus we invest in our understanding, the less damage control is required once we truly absorb what we are destined to learn.

If we do not find the clarity the lesson offers it will not end there. What we do not learn will be retaught again and again until we, "get" it soul-deep. Do not waste time struggling. Do not fall into poor me mode. Do not look for a scapegoat. Simply examine all that it offers and hidden among the negatives is always a positive that is the entire purpose of the exercise. If it hurts then avoid the necessity of more pain by putting into action what must be done to make the pain result in a gain. None of us will ever be trouble free, but all of us have the power to learn and grow enough to stand firm and face whatever lessons we must to become a better person tomorrow than we are today. Think about it... let it ride... then decide!!!