Two Sad Tales - And one happy ending.

Ian — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:48:12 +0000

Would you like to hear a depressing but true story? Be warned, some if it is kind of intense. But here it goes. It starts with a six year old boy who threw a Frisbee that his dog chased into the road, getting hit by a car. When they buried the dog, the boy chiseled the dog’s name – Snoopy – into a brick as a tombstone. When he was eight, his brother was killed in a tragic car accident involving a train. At the age of thirteen, he was a pallbearer for the first time, when his grandmother died. Just after he turned sixteen, he found his father’s body after he had passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in the night. In the following two years, he found two different girls dead from drug overdoses, the morning after late night parties. By the time he was twenty three, he had watched a friend get gunned down less than ten feet away, and had lost two friends to drunk driving. In the next few years he lost another friend to drugs, and one to suicide.

That’s kind of a depressing story, isn’t it? Let’s try another.

Coincidentally, another guy I know lost his father at sixteen. This friend’s mom was away at college, so the fellow was forced to strike out on his own that same year. Facing these early challenges actually gave my friend an interesting depth of character at a young age, and led him to explore all sorts of things he never would have explored had he lived more “conventional” late teen years, moving out at eighteen and going to college. While on this little journey, he experienced a few more losses and challenges, which gave him a real knack for comforting others who were facing the inevitable loss of loved ones.

So who are these guys, and why am I telling you their stories?

You may have figured out by now that it’s the same guy in both stories. And maybe you even figured out that it was MY story. Well, it WAS my story for a long time. It was all true, and if you met me more than ten years ago, you were almost certain to hear the first version if you wanted to get to know me. It was useful enough in its own way; I was (and still am) a little peculiar in some ways, and this helped give someone some background on why I might be a little different. But although telling it over and over may have had some therapeutic or social use, it probably kept me a little stuck, more than anything. I don’t even tell the other version these days, except in a setting like this. I’ve touched on this before, but your “story” can have a profound impact not only how others perceive you, but how you yourself perceive you. Which may be more important.

So. What’s your story?

Each week for the next few months, Nick and I will be riffing on a theme from our recently published book 101 Ideas to Kick Your Ass Into Gear. This week’s theme is “Tell Your Story”

thewellnessaddict.com » happy ending

Two Sad Tales - And one happy ending.