Starting Over
Saying goodbye to one's status, locale, work assignment, or group of friends has its own bittersweetness. Saying hello to a new life phase, job opportunity, or predicament presents us with unique challenges. New beginnings force us to examine our core values, unload non-essential baggage, watch our pathway, narrow our focus, deal with changing expectations, even learn a new language if one becomes an expatriate.

Laura, recently widowed, moved from her sizeable residence into a nearby retirement community. In describing her anxiety to a friend, she confessed: "I have never spent a night alone in my entire life." Trying to begin again, Laura felt out of sync in her retirement center apartment.

Petrified with fear, despite a security alarm system, she returned to her former home for a couple of days. But Laura was fearful and missed Sam terribly, so she returned to Coast Point Retirement Village. Unable to settle into the "old folks" community, she had all the locks changed on the doors at her big house and returned home to live alone. Her panic attacks lasted several months. Laura found that beginning again as a single, senior adult is hard.

Starting over may prompt a burst of creativity, especially if one has gotten an unfavorable health report. Award-winning composer Henry Mancini died at age seventy of liver and pancreatic cancer. Mancini's music formed the soundtrack of a generation. He pioneered in using different elements of American music when creating film scores. His family surrounded Mancini with attentiveness and affection as the cancer intensified its grip. The winner of four Oscars and twenty Grammy Awards, Mancini composed at the piano until shortly before his death.

When Things Are Set in Motion
You can count on it. New situations force us into choice points at the most surprising, sometimes inopportune, times. Attention-getting experiences, such as a wind-shear incident after takeoff of a passenger plane, churn our emotions, preoccupy our minds, drain our energies, and force us to learn more about the business of living. When we are stretched by some wake-up call, we may think only survival counts, not the destination. But both the way we go through shattering events and the goal we reach matter.

When facing a new challenge, obstacle, or conflict, our temptation is to react as we have always done in the past. Reacting is easier than responding with a new strategy or fresh resolve. The Japanese have a word for endurance from the code of the samuri: gaman. It means “to bear the unbearable,” to endure losses without complaint. Steering a course through a stressful situation requires more ingenuity and determination than endurance alone.

When things are set in motion by change, we are faced with new choice points. Life forces us to decide and act. It refuses to take "no comment" for an answer. We are products of our choices within life's circumstances, not mere victims. Just as a small pilot boat guides a large ship through harbor traffic and danger to the sea, we need points on our compass to help us face and resolve circumstances rather than being mere victims. We Need help now!