hope

The Inevitable Truth of Life–Things Go Wrong

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

How do you face the difficult times in life?

Over the weekend, my husband and I went to see The Martian, and this is the question I walked away with.

In The Martian, Mark Watney is part of the team of astronauts who went on a Mars mission. Due to a storm, they had to leave the surface of Mars before their allotted time was over. During preparation for lift off, Watney was injured and lost in the storm. The team thought he was dead and had to launch without him–leaving him stranded on Mars, a planet where nothing grows, with no breathable atmosphere, and extreme weather conditions.

I don’t want to spoil too many of the story details for you, but Watney doggedly manages to survive on Mars until he’s able to be rescued, years later.

Once back on earth, Watney becomes an instructor, teaching astronaut candidates. In his first class, he tells them the one inevitable truth of space travel.

At some point, everything will go wrong.

That’s not an if. It’s a when. And when everything goes wrong, there’s really only one thing you can do if you want to survive.

You have to focus on one problem at a time.

The movie was talking about space and what you face there, but it’s also the one inevitable truth about life.

At some point in your life, everything will go wrong. Horribly, heart-breakingly, hope-crushingly wrong.

And there’s only one thing you can do if you want to survive. You focus on one problem at a time.

The big picture—that’s going to be more than we can handle when life blows up in our face. Because if we look at the big picture, it’ll seem impossible to overcome. We’ll feel too weak, too unprepared, too alone. Too everything.

But one problem at a time…well, we can find the strength for that one small thing. Just that thing. Only that thing.

And then the next one.

And the next one.

And one day, we’ll look up, and we’ll have made it out the other side. We’ll have survived.

And if we’re really brave, one day we’ll do what Mark Watney did. We’ll take what we’ve learned and use it to help teach others how to survive. Because at some point in their lives, everything will go wrong.

And what will matter most if they want to survive is knowing how to face it without giving up.

Have you faced a time in your life when everything seemed to go wrong? What helped you through?

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Who Makes You Want to Be a Better Person?

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

I had a light-hearted quiz post prepared for today (and you’ll still see it next week), but I couldn’t post it. I felt the need to re-post something I wrote two years ago. You see, Saturday was the 12th anniversary of the death of one of my dearest friends, and this past week another friend of mine lost her son. He was only 24 years old. An unexpected health complication took him from those who loved him.

So I needed to re-run this post in honor of the memory of both Amanda and James because I know that he was to many people what she was to me.

****

“I have forgotten that men cannot see unicorns. If men no longer know what they’re looking at, there may be other unicorns in the world yet, unknown, and glad of it.”—The Last Unicorn (1982 movie) based on the novel by Peter S. Beagle.

Unicorn

Don’t believe anyone who tells you unicorns don’t exist. I’ve met one. And no, I’m not talking about those pictures that occasionally circle the internet of goats who’ve had their horns trained to twist together.

I’ve met a real, live unicorn. She just didn’t look like what most people might expect.

Accounts differ about where the unicorn legend originated, but the most consistent picture of them is of a white horse with a single spiral horn growing from their forehead. As every little girl will tell you, they’re exceptionally beautiful.

Their horn soon became known as the bane of evil. A unicorn horn could drive away evil, neutralize poison, and kill any monster it came into contact with. Both their horn and their blood were said to have healing properties.

In China, unicorns came to symbolize wisdom. They were the kings among the animals. In the United Kingdom, they symbolized purity and many kings made them part of their heraldry.

They were and are beloved for a very simple reason.

Unicorns are the embodiment of good.

My unicorn had dark hair, hands that were cold even in summer, and an infectious laugh. She was exceptionally beautiful both inside and out.

Her name was Amanda, and she was one of my best friends. In 2001, a repeat-offender drunk driver with a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit and a suspended license slammed into her driver’s side door at 100/mph (160 km/h). After 21 hours in a coma, she died. In a way, it was a blessing. The doctors said even if she’d woken up, she’d never have been the Amanda we knew again.

For a year, I brought flowers to her grave every Friday. I went because I missed her, but to be honest, I think I went more because of the fear that if I skipped even one week it would mean I’d forgotten her. And she deserved to be remembered.

Then, a year after her death, sitting on the soggy ground beside her grave, I finally realized the best way to honor and remember her wasn’t to sit in the cold and cry. It wasn’t to bring her flowers. It was to let her life and who she was motivate me to be a better person.

When you cut away all the myths and speculations and stories, unicorns are the things that make us want to be better simply by knowing of them, by being around them. They are what we aspire to be.

Amanda was far from perfect, but I can’t remember the imperfections anymore. What I do remember is her creativity, her cheerfulness, her refusal to let anyone change who she was, her determination and strong work ethic, her soft heart for hurting people.

The qualities I still remember best about her are the ones I want people to one day remember about me too.

I’m far from perfect. I’m still far from being the person I want to be. But I hope that one day, if I keep working at it, I’ll be someone’s unicorn too.

Who’s your unicorn? What is it about them that you so admire? How have they helped you become a better person?

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Image Credit: aschaeffer via www.sxc.hu

The Dangerous Side of Hope

The Hunger Games by Suzanne CollinsBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

In a world that can be dark and brutal and unfair, hope is one of our most powerful weapons. It can also be a weapon used against us, to keep us from changing our lives.

In the movie version of The Hunger Games, the screenwriters chose to pull back the curtain and give us a look at what was happening with President Snow and the game-makers while Katniss was in the arena. (I love that they did this.) In one scene, President Snow summons Seneca Crane, the head game-maker, and asks him an unusual question.

“Seneca,” he says, “why do you think we have a winner?”

Seneca frowns. “What do you mean?”

“If we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? It would be a lot faster.”

Seneca doesn’t know how to answer.

President Snow almost smiles. “Hope. It’s the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. Spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.

President Snow realized what most of us don’t. Hope, like many other great things, has a dangerous side.

A little hope is what keeps us in a bad job, a bad relationship, or any bad situation. We have just enough hope that we tell ourselves if we stay long enough something might change. We might get that promotion, that raise we deserve. They might realize how wonderful we are and treat us better.

For all the people in the districts in The Hunger Games, seeing one victor gave them just enough hope that their lives might get better if they persevered long enough. That little thread of hope kept them controlled.

But a lot of hope is what freed them. And it’s what can free us.

Because Katniss didn’t play by the Capital’s rules, and because she succeeded due to daring to try something different, she gave the people of the districts a bigger hope. A hope that said they could change things rather than waiting for something to change.

A little hope convinces us to wait, that if we’re patient, things will naturally change for the better. A lot of hope convinces us to act, that if we take the initiative, we’ll be able to have something better than what we have now. It tells us we’re strong enough, smart enough, valuable enough, brave enough. It tells us we can change our circumstances if we’re willing to take a risk.

Those of you who come to my blog regularly know my husband and I have decided we’re tired of having just a little hope. It’s time for a lot of hope. So he’s going back to school, and I’m self-publishing (first book will release next month if all goes well!), and yes, we’re both afraid. Terrified really.

But hope is stronger than fear.

What risk have you taken lately in the hope of making your life better?

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Why I Fall For Promotional Contests Every Time

I have a stack of yellow Atlantic Avenue pieces for the McDonalds’ Monopoly game even though I consider fast food a heart attack in a bag. I buy more Tim Horton’s coffees in a week of their Roll Up the Rim promo every March than any human should drink in a month. And when the local hardware store ran an online Spin to Win campaign last Christmas, I logged in every day even though it meant playing an obnoxious elf game.

I know it’s pathetic. I know that I’m playing right into their hands like a mind-controlled lemming. But they draw me in every time with their promises of free food, free cars, money.

After all, I tell myself, someone has to win those prizes. I have as good a chance as anyone. That my chances of winning are so slim I have a better chance of growing another inch doesn’t matter. I might win. I might. And no one can convince me otherwise no matter how much they smirk and laugh behind their hands.

I revel in the anticipation of peeling the stickers off that sheaf of fries I shouldn’t be eating (but can justify because the calories will all be worth it if I win.) Will it be Boardwalk at last? Or only another stupid Reading Railroad? The collection of the different pieces is part of the fun. Peeling them off and sticking them on the game board provides a certain sense of satisfaction. (Even if I do have to let my husband peel the ones off his own food.)

These little games, stupid as they are, give me something to hope for. Maybe when we roll up the rim on this coffee, we’ll win the car so we can retire our rust bucket that’s held together with duct tape and dirt. Maybe when we peel this sticker, we’ll get the money we need to pay off our student loans or quit the job we hate to follow our dream.   

As Snow White tells bail bondswoman Emma Swann in the premier episode of Once Upon A Time, “Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing.” That’s what really draws me in. It isn’t the prizes. It isn’t even the money (nice as that would be).

It’s the possibility of a happy ending.

In the last year and a half, I had dental surgery because my front tooth randomly fell out, my husband tore both his hamstrings at once leading to a slow rehab, my dog died of cancer, my husband lost his job, my truck was totaled, I had to take a job that makes me want to curl up in the fetal position, and I had to give up my horses—to name only a few.

Playing the silly promotional contests helps remind me on the bad days that things will get better. No, I probably won’t win the car or the money. But the rocky times we’ve faced lately won’t last either.

Tomorrow might be the day my husband gets a job. It might be the day I land an agent. It might just be a perfect day for no particular reason at all.

Or I might roll up the rim on my coffee cup and win $100,000. You never know.

What things do you do even though you know they’re silly and irrational? What little habits or routines do you have that for some unexplainable reason make you feel good? What helps you believe in the possibility of a happy ending?

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