I have noticed lately that so many people look at the down side of “what if” instead of the upside of it. You can make yourself crazy worrying about the “what if’s” of a situation. Believe me I know.
If Martin and I worried about the “what if’s” of Andrew’s situation, we wouldn’t have had the profound time that we did the last few months of our son’s life. Nor would we have survived it!
We really would have had major regrets, instead of “No Regrets”, (shameless reference to my book) if we had focused on ALL the downsides of “what if’s.” Believe me, there were plenty “what if’s” we could have focused on. Leukemia gives you a boat load of scary “what if’s” to focus on fo sho. But it would have been a HUGE waste of time. It would have taken away from the quality of our time that we did have with Andrew his last few months here. Some of my fondest memories with Andrew are in the hospital because I focused on the time I had with my son. I was present in the moment with him because I knew I wasn’t guaranteed the next one. In reality, NONE of us are really guaranteed the next moment, so I drank in each moment with him. And I try to do that now even more so with my loved ones here. I CHOSE not to focus on the “what if” this or that happens. If you want to be happy, you just can’t do that. If you want to have a fulfilling life with your loved ones here, you just can’t do that.
It all boils down to choice. Are you going to make the most of the time you have with your loved ones in your life? Or are you going to waste it by worrying about things that may never happen anyway? Even if you have someone in your life dealing with a terminal illness, do you want your memories to be that of worry about when they are leaving? Or do you want to look back and think about how you made the most of the time you did have with them. Do you want to look back and have “No Regrets” (yup! another ref) on how you spent the time with them? Look back with fondness on the beautiful memories you chose to create instead of worry? Or choose just to be miserable and full of regret that you didn’t allow yourself to really enjoy the person to the fullest during their last months or days here. Either way it IS YOUR choice!
When you worry about something that MAY happen, you take away quality of life not only for you, but for those people around you. Remember, with every “what if” this or that happens, there is ALWAYS, “what if” it doesn’t! What if you focused on joy? What if you focused on being happy? What if you chose to be grateful? What if you chose to look at the blessings in your life instead? Hmmmmm what if…?
What if we chose to do what Andrew, and the great philosophers, Monty Python did and “ALWAYS look on the bright side of life!” Or singer Jason Mraz who has “The Remedy” of life by saying, “I won’t worry my life away.” If a 16yo could choose do it while undergoing aggressive leukemia treatment, then so can we, if we CHOOSE to! We have no excuse!
What if we just believed…
IT’S ALL GOOD!