Sliding Doors & Attachment….
At any moment our life can change. An accident, a sickness, losing your job. This can create both pain and opportunity. This was brought home to me recently when the Cowboys Legend Matt Scott, retiring from the NRL at the end of the season, had a stroke which shocked everyone.
When you have spent a long time doing and being something, a sportsman, a successful businessman, a “party person”, or any multitude of labels that we place on ourselves about who we are and how people see us…when this is suddenly taken away it can leave us reeling, not understanding how we will go on, how will we fit into the world now, a complete loss of a sense of ourselves.
People often say that great opportunity comes with great adversity, but unfortunately it is much more often that greater adversity comes from adversity. The reason is the attachment we place on our identity. If you see yourself only as a successful sportsman and that’s why people like you, then you are going to struggle when that is taken away. You’re the life of the party but you get sick and can’t be that person anymore…then who are you?
We spend a lifetime trying to be an image of what we see as successful…but as soon as we attach our happiness and success to that image then we are doomed to failure. You grow old and change, you can’t do the things you used to do and inevitably we are all faced with our own mortality.
Who do you think you are…and are you enough if this is taken away?
