Challenging Times

Although I chat with you here about my writing, my travels, my kids, my philosophies about life, I am not unaware of what difficult times these are, and how truly frightening for some. On the one hand, I don’t like the idea of dwelling on the anxieties of the times (how much fun is that?), and I hate the idea of spreading panic as some people do. (There is always some dark person in the crowd just itching to scare us all to death. I just hate that stuff. I’d rather give people hope, which I try to do with my books). But we also can’t ignore how serious these days are. Many people are worried, some have lost jobs, people are struggling to keep their businesses intact, some have decided that it’s wisest to close, people have lost money in the stock market or due to scams. And no question, people are worried about their lives, houses, and jobs. There is a feeling of uncertainty in the air. How long will it last? How far will it go? We don’t know yet, and all we can do is hang in, and hope it gets better soon.

I don’t want to be insensitive, chattering on about my opinions about life, my writing, or my kids, without acknowledging that I know these are serious times, and very challenging for some. Like illness, when it hits you, it suddenly becomes very real. And no question, some people and businesses have been hard hit.

But as much as I want to be respectful of those most affected (and it affects all of us in some way), I don’t want to be one of the gloom and doom sayers either. What’s the point of that? Nothing is served by frightening each other with worst case scenarios, or scary stories we’ve heard.

The truth is we don’t know how long it will last. Hopefully not too long. It’s interesting, in Europe people have great faith in us. Someone in France said to me that Americans fall hard when they are hit, but they get up fast with enormous courage, energy and strength. That’s a nice reputation to have. And people around the world are looking to us to see how we handle it, and how fast we get back on our feet. We are indeed a powerful, courageous country, and I believe we will get back on our feet as fast as we can, and encourage other countries to do so.

In other situations in my life, I have often found that when I was in the darkest despair, the most hopeless, the most convinced that a situation would end in disaster—shortly after that, the situation resolved and the positive resolution I had feared would never come, happened immediately thereafter. I like the saying that ‘The night is darkest before the dawn’, which I have so often found to be true in life.

So if these times seem very dark, if you’re afraid that the answers and remedies won’t come, that disaster is just around the corner—-please let’s try to hang on to the knowledge that the dawn will come again. It always does. The night will not stay dark forever. And we will get back on our feet again when that dawn comes. Let’s give each other strength in the darkness, and know that the dawn will come.