Is your focus on what you have or what you have lost

Is your focus on what you have

or what you have lost

Tim Connor

Sooner or later we all lose something during our life – a job, a loved one, our health, our resources or any number of life’s things.  Loss is just a normal part of living even though we don’t want to lose anything that we love, like, have, value or are attached to.

Just think for a moment how many people each year lose stuff due to floods, hurricanes, storms, accidents or fire – the number would stagger you. Did they see these coming?  Probably not.  Were they devastated? Most likely.  Did they survive? Yes. Did they have to begin again? Yes. Was it easy? Probably not.

But when loss strikes - we all have a choice – stay stuck in the grief, guilt, anger, disappointment, fear or uncertainty or move on with courage, hope, 

gratitude, yes gratitude, and a positive life outlook.  Is this easy, no and I know as I have lost a great deal during my life, but moving forward always seemed like a better approach than letting circumstances dictate the rest of my life.

Loss gives us a simple choice – focus on the loss or be filled with thanks for what we still have and believe me, I know the difference and the ongoing pain and discouragement that the first one can bring into your life day by day, even minute by minute.

If you lost your home but you and your family are still alive – blessing? You betcha.  Are you filled with sadness and remorse for what you lost?  Certainly, but life must go on.

If you have lost a loved one – and I know the pain of this loss as many of you have as well, but should we let this loss destroy what we have in life or should we take the memories of this person and their life and what they meant to us into every day that we are given?

I am by no means trivializing loss but I have known many people who let their loss ruin what time they had left.  I have also known many people who have lost a great deal or even everything and moved on with courage, optimism and faith.

I’m not talking here about a tree falling in your yard destroying your lawn or a car that has served you well for many years but it just wore out.  I’m talking about stuff that we loved, were attached to or felt we deserved.  These losses can be catastrophic and filled with grief and even traumatic outcomes but in the end, if we are still here we need to ask a few simple questions that will help us move on with dignity, hope and courage.

-Were we too attached to some stuff?

-Did we feel that our life was this stuff?

-What can we learn from our loss?

-Have we taken stock of what we have left?

-Have we felt blessed because of what was not taken from us?

-Are we feeling guilt because of some unspoken words, lack of  

  forgiveness?  Or some action we didn’t take when we had the chance?

-Has our loss caused us to rethink what really matters in life?

These are just a few of the questions we might ask when we are faced head on with an unplanned for or unexpected loss.  In the end life is a gift and everything we own we really don’t own it is on loan to us from life and God while we are here and when we lose something, it may have been for some very good reasons, reasons that we are unable to comprehend while going through the grief and/or disappointment of our loss.

Loss can be a wonderful teacher but in order to learn we have to be a good student.  We have to find the will, attitudes, confidence or skills to overcome our loss and move on with positive expectations taking the lessons learned into the rest of our life.

This my friends always takes resilience, belief and effort but in the end moving forward is always a better life choice than choosing to remain stuck or a victim.

“Even in the common affairs of life, in love, in friendship and marriage how little security have we when  trust our happiness in the hands of others.”

Hazlitt