Chapter 12:
Pulling the Rug
from Under Me
Indeed, life can be frustrating. If I put my
finger on the pulse of society, my guess is the top four things people get
frustrated about are money, career, health or a relationship. Remember, this is a guess, but I think I’m
pretty close to being right. Perhaps not in that order. Everyone is an individual.
Regardless of your circumstances, what
matters is how you deal with the issue frustrating you. Why? Because that is
what will determine your outcome. Regardless
the issue, we want our outcome to be the one that brings us happiness! Nothing else is good enough. What’s all the
fuss about life if we are not going to live it happy?
Allow me to relate. I have had a spinal cord
injury for a little over 20 years. I was in a car accident when I was 21 years
old that resulted in a broken neck, a spinal cord injury, and paralysis
from the shoulders down. No sexy details, just a true boring ole’
accident.
For me, it felt as if the rug of my life had
instantly been ripped from underneath. I was falling in midair with no
parachute. Prior to the moment I was
injured, I had been on a magic carpet ride, you see.
I was 21 years old, sharing a townhouse with
my girlfriend in Connecticut, and had just landed a dream job. I had been working two jobs to make ends meet.
One was as a “Girl Friday” (the person in a small office that does everything
from making copies, brewing coffee, answering phones, picking up
dry cleaning for boss, etc., etc.), the other as a weekend manager at a small
Greenwich salon.
A woman came into the salon one weekend, and I
offered her something to drink, as I would any client. We only spoke for
literally a minute, but out of nowhere she hands me her business card and tells
me to call her the following day.
I call, I make an appointment to see her, and
she offers me a job. As what? A consultant on Wall Street. Or perhaps
you’ve heard the not-so-nice term “headhunter.” The financial package offered fantastic
health insurance, educational expenses
reimbursement, and enough money per week that I could quit both my jobs. Added to this was the commission I’d receive when I
placed someone in a job.
She explained in general how the business
worked and how she came to be where she was. I assured this woman I could learn
anything, and what she proposed sounded not only interesting but exciting… my
one problem was, I knew nothing about the position she was offering me!
She laughed and said she could teach me all I
needed to know about stocks, bonds, mortgage-backed
securities, etc. What she couldn’t teach was honesty, integrity, and tenacity. You
had to work hard at this career, but never get so caught up in a commission you
could make that you placed someone in a job you knew wasn’t in their best interest, but in yours. And she said she saw those qualities in
me.
Her company was small, but her clients were
big. I worked at that wonderful business, filled with hard-working, intelligent,
good women for almost four months. I felt my
life was the cherry on top of the sundae. I sang
Frank Sinatra’s lyrics, “I’ve got the world on a
string, sitting on a rainbow,” 24/7. I
had found my niche in the professional world.
I had arrived! Whoop! Whoop!
Then I broke my neck and became paralyzed for
life. My physical independence, my financial independence, my independence in
every aspect of my life was over. For an
individual that had been on her own since she was very young, frustration took
on a new meaning.
For a drink of water, to scratch an itch on my nose,
getting dressed, eating, driving, and every tiny detail in between, I couldn’t
do any of these on my own… there was nothing I
could think of that I had control over. When you feel like you don’t have
control over your own business, finances, relationships, etc., you feel
frustrated.
So what to do? Hmmm… After digesting what it really meant to
have a spinal cord injury, I realized I had something that only I could control,
no one else. No doctor, nurse,
therapist, friend, family, or foe, could control the thoughts I put in my
mind. I made those up and put them
there, nobody else.
It was as if a magical window opened in my
hospital room, and I could see outside for the first time. Yet nothing had
physically changed. I simply shifted my
perception, allowing my mind, my heart and my soul to open up and see the
possibilities.
Once I did that, I felt like a different
person.
Frustration comes when we can’t find a solution
or create a plan to change circumstances we do not wish to be in. Frustration
comes from feeling out-of-control of our own destiny. I should be the driver of
my life, no one else.
So if you are feeling frustrated, your first
step is to recognize what you are frustrated about. Next, find one element in
your circumstances you can control. It’s there, I promise. Just find one. That
one element will lead you to find other elements you can control, and suddenly
you have a plan to get you out of the circumstances you are in, and headed
toward the life you wish to lead instead.
I’ll leave you with one of my
favorite quotes from Norman Vincent Peale, “Change your thoughts and you
change your world.”
Amy
E. Alexander
###
Excerpted from FRUSTRATED WITH LIFE? You Are Not Alone, ebook by Edison R. Guzman and Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., available online from amazon.com.
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