Beyond Survival
In the 170ies and 80ies if one was lucky enough to spend hours disco dancing, one remembers Gloria Gaynor singing the song written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris “We will survive”. Actually the words alone do not do the song as interrupted by Gloria Gaynor justice. While listening and dancing one knows one will not just survive but will also thrive. I was thinking of experiencing this song while I listened to 2018 Ted Talk given by Mark Pollock and Simone George entitled “A love letter to realism in a time of grief”. Mr. Pollock became blind at age 22, went on to run many marathons. Then came the day he got up in the middle of the night and while feeling his way along the wall, fell out of an open window resulting in multiple injuries including paralysis. Later with the assistance of a robot he regains some movement and continues his quest for a way to restore more of the functioning of those who are left with similar injuries.
As I often do he reads and rereads Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s search for Meaning” in which Frankl quotes Nietzsche “He, who has a Why to live, can bear with almost any How.” I have often read and pondered this quote. Mr. Pollock also talked about his studies of those who have survived really tough life experiences and the tension between acceptance and hope. He calls the response which works best that of a realist. He says “…the optimists rely only on hope alone and they risk being disappointed and demoralized. The realists, on the other hand, they accept the brutal facts and they keep hope alive, as well. They have managed to resolve the tension between acceptance and hope by running them in parallel.”
As I have previously mentioned in my early life I was blessed to be put In the path of a few people who walked the tension between acceptance and hope; Later on I deliberately sought out those who not only survived but seems to thrive through great adversity; from the likes of Jesus, the prophet Mohammed, the Buddha, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Jr, Coretta Scott King, and a host of others such as the Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, to those who created music in the Nazi death camps. Sometimes the wisest, bravest person I meet is an amazing little girl born blind, or the parents of a wheel chair bound polio survivor whose parents gave her hope while not denying the reality of the Wheelchair, or the person arising out of the ashes of addiction to teach all of us how to live life with love and dignity.
The existential question I must ask as a licensed counselor is how we help ourselves and others embrace this tension between acceptance and hope; how one moves from despair to hope while not denying the reality of really tough life events. Blindness, a history of addiction, loss of a beloved child, war, refuge status, paralyzing illness, loss of a career because of an accident or an illness just when one is about to touch the star of their dreams all threaten to send one to suicide – emotional, spiritual or physical. Yet there are those who accept what has happened but refuse to accept that they will never walk again; who believe that all of life is college, graduate school and post graduate school; all of life is an opportunity to strive to accept one’s situation without defining oneself by that situation. In the eighties those dying with AIDS became those living with Aids’. The disease which was real required acute care but did not define those living with it; Just for today they had much living to do; much to contribute; much to teach.
If we are to walk with those in the midst of the opioid epidemic; those refugees praying for a home; those who homes are stolen by the changing climate; those living with deep grief we must trust that they have a why; that we who are working for/with them/walking with them just as they are walking with us have a purpose. We need to offer a hug, but never, ever offer a pat on the head as if they are just pitiful and have no “why”! We must believe in a collective creative strength to find the cure for paralysis; to trust that the homeless, diseased addict with the yoke of a prison record is going to be the most valuable teacher we have ever encountered; to know that parent grieving that seemingly unbearable loss is going to walk with other grieving parents and give them hope while not denying their loss.
We will survive. We will thrive.
Written September 25, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
In the 170ies and 80ies if one was lucky enough to spend hours disco dancing, one remembers Gloria Gaynor singing the song written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris “We will survive”. Actually the words alone do not do the song as interrupted by Gloria Gaynor justice. While listening and dancing one knows one will not just survive but will also thrive. I was thinking of experiencing this song while I listened to 2018 Ted Talk given by Mark Pollock and Simone George entitled “A love letter to realism in a time of grief”. Mr. Pollock became blind at age 22, went on to run many marathons. Then came the day he got up in the middle of the night and while feeling his way along the wall, fell out of an open window resulting in multiple injuries including paralysis. Later with the assistance of a robot he regains some movement and continues his quest for a way to restore more of the functioning of those who are left with similar injuries.
As I often do he reads and rereads Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s search for Meaning” in which Frankl quotes Nietzsche “He, who has a Why to live, can bear with almost any How.” I have often read and pondered this quote. Mr. Pollock also talked about his studies of those who have survived really tough life experiences and the tension between acceptance and hope. He calls the response which works best that of a realist. He says “…the optimists rely only on hope alone and they risk being disappointed and demoralized. The realists, on the other hand, they accept the brutal facts and they keep hope alive, as well. They have managed to resolve the tension between acceptance and hope by running them in parallel.”
As I have previously mentioned in my early life I was blessed to be put In the path of a few people who walked the tension between acceptance and hope; Later on I deliberately sought out those who not only survived but seems to thrive through great adversity; from the likes of Jesus, the prophet Mohammed, the Buddha, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Jr, Coretta Scott King, and a host of others such as the Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, to those who created music in the Nazi death camps. Sometimes the wisest, bravest person I meet is an amazing little girl born blind, or the parents of a wheel chair bound polio survivor whose parents gave her hope while not denying the reality of the Wheelchair, or the person arising out of the ashes of addiction to teach all of us how to live life with love and dignity.
The existential question I must ask as a licensed counselor is how we help ourselves and others embrace this tension between acceptance and hope; how one moves from despair to hope while not denying the reality of really tough life events. Blindness, a history of addiction, loss of a beloved child, war, refuge status, paralyzing illness, loss of a career because of an accident or an illness just when one is about to touch the star of their dreams all threaten to send one to suicide – emotional, spiritual or physical. Yet there are those who accept what has happened but refuse to accept that they will never walk again; who believe that all of life is college, graduate school and post graduate school; all of life is an opportunity to strive to accept one’s situation without defining oneself by that situation. In the eighties those dying with AIDS became those living with Aids’. The disease which was real required acute care but did not define those living with it; Just for today they had much living to do; much to contribute; much to teach.
If we are to walk with those in the midst of the opioid epidemic; those refugees praying for a home; those who homes are stolen by the changing climate; those living with deep grief we must trust that they have a why; that we who are working for/with them/walking with them just as they are walking with us have a purpose. We need to offer a hug, but never, ever offer a pat on the head as if they are just pitiful and have no “why”! We must believe in a collective creative strength to find the cure for paralysis; to trust that the homeless, diseased addict with the yoke of a prison record is going to be the most valuable teacher we have ever encountered; to know that parent grieving that seemingly unbearable loss is going to walk with other grieving parents and give them hope while not denying their loss.
We will survive. We will thrive.
Written September 25, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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