Choose Love

Boxer Mike Tyson had it right when he said everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Alone in the ring, perhaps bleeding, gasping, weak-kneed and trying to fend off yet another blow, they enter a new dimension. As Tyson later explained, "they stop in fear and freeze." Eight rounds to go.

And so it is with most everyone's life journey -- perhaps it's a devastating illness, a job loss, a major financial blow . . . . or, perhaps, as in Heidi's case, it's the experience of an out-of-the-blue sucker punch shattering a nuclear family. Her story, however, did not end with fear and immobility. Quite the opposite. It opened her up to new life dimensions and ways to interact with the world, a journey aptly titled in her (and our focus) piece: Choose Love

It may sound trite to say but what happens to us is generally less important than how we choose to respond. Let's first parse Heidi's word choice i.e. love. That could be interpreted to mean underlying acceptance and whole-hearted embrace of life, of oneself, even (maybe especially) of the "other." The alternative is to remain steeped in resentment, a most corrosive element usually applied to the self. Only after saying yes to life might we come to possess the equanimity and non-attachment necessary to fully assess fortune and misfortune (MM 6/10/19, Good/Bad . . We'll See).

Easier said than done, of course, particularly when it comes to the loss of a close family member, especially with the death of one's child. Even then we may find some comfort in the Parable of the Mustard Seed (click: Buddhism and the Parable of the Mustard Seed). The fact of impermanence, suffering, and death understood as universal is a reminder we are never truly alone in our life journey.

May we apply that principle as we share our own life experiences, not as voyeurs, but as mere mortals applying the lessons of others to support our own path enlightenment. Perhaps we'll even discover gratitude for those punches to the face. They may have just opened your path to the Second Mountain (MM 10/7/19, Second Mountain).

Eight rounds to go (maybe).