Wait a minute, I didn’t agree to this, Or did I?

It will undoubtedly come as a surprise to most of you in light of my less than stellar academic career, but I am an avid reader. One of the most frustrating things that I had (and is) to deal with after my TBI was/is my memory deficits. My working memory, ability to hold limited amounts of information for immediate use, was so impacted following my injury that I was constantly flipping to prior pages for reference. Sure I was grateful to be able to read at all, but the constant backtracking to avoid becoming totally lost caused immense frustration. However, looking at the glass as half full, when coupled with a greatly impaired Short Term memory, this deficit allowed me to maintain a level of suspense even during rereads! Half kidding!

Today I find myself thinking about a couple of particular books I had recommended to me that I really enjoyed. I find myself reading a lot of books classified as New Age or Self-Development. On a side note, I always find it confusing that books exploring ways of thought and or strategies to live with more internal peace often labeled New Age: Apparently the desire for internal calm and better ability to handle life’s up and downs is “New”. Am I to assume that in years past people welcomed stress and emotional volatility?

But back to those books…The first one came recommended by: Oh there’s that memory thing again, by someone who shall remain nameless, is Barry Kaufman’s Happiness is a Choice. The second is the classic investigation of flawed beliefs which cause needless suffering; The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. With the benefit of hindsight, the common threads of both personal responsibility and choice’s importance in one’s emotional well-being seems to be flashing in fluorescent colors on a billboard showing the two covers. I suspect that most people read these types of books when troubled in their life seeking an simple answer or external solution, only to be bewildered by the theme discussed by Ruiz and Kaufman.

But before you think I’m trudging “victim blaming road” or the ”trail of self-pity”, I find the self-empowerment emphasized by both authors to be hopeful rather than accusatory. After all, telling someone how they got slighted or merely providing an echo chamber for frustrations does little to help. Although it is a fine line between honoring another’s experience and validating their emotions, to highlight where the individual can effect change is to truly give power. Of course, it would be Pollyanna and inaccurate of me to claim that by having the proper attitude life will be problem free, so please don’t take it that way.

A prayer that I hear often and find to be a great mental reset when I find myself struggling, seeming to be swimming against the current of life, is the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity

to accept things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

While none of us has total control, or is the “man behind the curtain” so to speak, we can choose the things we give our time and energy to. After all, it is the things that we give (freely transfer possession of (something) to (someone); hand over to) our time and energy to shape who we become.