Well, during our “What Do You Want To Know About Me” community building session in class, the students were interested in my survival of a massive cerebral hemorrhage and what it meant to me.  I told them that it wasn’t soon after I had returned from the hospital that I experienced survivor syndrome asking with a combination of curiosity, wonder, confusion, and guilt, “Why me?”  I wanted to know why had I survived totally unscathed as a walking “5%-er.”  I was not alone in asking that question.  When bad things happen to good people, we tend to ask, “Why,” with the expectation of answers.   We have an urge for order.  We so want to believe that there is nothing left to a randomness.  We want coherent, identifiable, and simple patterns.  We want guarantees that things happen for a reason.  We want assurances that there is purpose and meaning, maybe even reward and punishment, in everything that occurs.  This belief is embedded in our feeling, thoughts, attitudes, and actions.  We want to be sermonized.  We want to hear pearls of insightful wisdom and knowledge.  We want rational answers.  We demand emotionally satisfying answers.  And, well-intentioned people rush to our aide to fill the void.  They come with unequivocal assertion and affirmation that they know the answers as if they just had had a gin and tonic with the Divine on Sinai’s summit or a bloody mary with Mother Nature out in an idyllic meadow.  But, if we think about it, their offering of assurance and comfort leave us cold and empty as might meaningless clichés, catch-phrases, or trite explanations.  After all, these people are as fallible and finite as we; they put on their pants or pantyhose one leg at a time as do we; and they don’t like the chancy throw of the dice anymore than do we.  In fact, they’re were talking to themselves as much as to me.

Slowly, over the months or recuperation, I came to a realization that maybe, just maybe, we, like Job, are asking the wrong question.  Maybe, we don’t need answers.  Maybe, it’s not enough just to be thankful you survived.  Maybe, we need to go down a heart and spirit checklist to see how we will hence take care of our mandate to live the good life.  Maybe, instead of asking “why,” we should ask the question or questions:  “Now what?”  “What do I draw from this experience?”  “What do I do with this experience?” “What does it mean for my life and those around me?” “How do I apply it to my life?”  “With whom can I share the experience and talk to about it?” “How can I be a both a candle that spreads light and a mirror that reflects it?”  “How can me feelings, attitudes, and movements be my prayer?”  These questions offer some things the static question of “why” doesn’t.  Maybe these questions put our hearts and minds into high gear.  Maybe they’re the ones that offer a purposeful and meaningful place where the future is a better place that we ourselves are creating; where the only paths are the ones we make; where the very act of cutting those paths changes both us, others, and where those paths lead.

It is what we do with adversity and loss, our ability to transform them into positive events–our capability to see opportunity rather than barrier in challenge–that is the greatest lesson I drew from my hemorrhage, as well as earlier from my cancer, and apply those lessons into my personal, social, and professional lives.   I learned that asking these questions and seeking out the answers diminishes threatening feelings, conquers doubts, clarifies confusion, and establishes a more hopeful, resilient outlook,   They don’t require I need, give into, or fight “what will they think.”  For them to bring the rains that end the dry seasons, they do require you to be your own person, to withstand the efforts of others to make you into the person they want you to be.  Then, they will turn the parched mundane into a lush sublime, and the extraordinary will sprout out from the ordinary.   They allow me to live each moment from my own learning and inspiration, not from any desire to look good in the eyes of others.  Now, I’ve been sharing my answers to those questions over the years.  And, I will tell you if you can walk the long and arduous inner road in quest of those answers, you will have a better chance of finding a peace of mind and openness of heart.  You can be exceptionally kind, loving, giving, and respectful without being a slave to the opinions of others.  You’ll discover that your significance doesn’t depend on the approval of others.  You will have a better chance of entering a world where every morning is like a reincarnation, where you live each moment with a thankful heart.  You will have a better chance of entering a world where every day is a renewal, where blessing are everywhere, where everything has meaning, where regrets have no place, where worries are of no use; where we step back from the pain and transform it into compassion, where we step back from stress and strengthen purpose, where we take anger and turn it into healing, where we drop resentment and allow our energy to blossom into enthusiasm.

Louis