6~2013

This is the first time I've said it, but I'm thankful for this year -- for 2013.   Many of my fears have come true and much of it has indeed been "difficult and complicated and beyond my control."  But my word for the year was HOPE, and in a year where my hope has been seriously challenged by depression, anxiety, failure, huge losses, and grief, my will to live and fight 'the real enemy' has actually become stronger!

For me, this J.K. Rowling quote is the best way to sum up 2013:

“Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. The fears that my parents had had for me and that I had had for myself had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. That period of my life was a dark one... I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. 

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.

I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive.  Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected. I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies. 

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself or the strength of your relationships until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won. And it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned...

Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult and complicated and beyond any person’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."

~J.K. Rowling