RE-SIZE

Life has a way of bringing us all down to size.

Whether this is ‘right size’ or not is a separate issue—over the longer term it seems to, more or less.

So, it would be better for us to ‘right-size’ ourselves to make the thudding journey of humility less humbling.

And yet, even if we are to do this i.e. right-size ourselves, wisdom necessarily prepares us for times when we will become humbled as a normal process of life. For example, grieving. We’ll all suffer loss, disappointment and hurt regardless of how humble we already are. We must simply expect this and accept it too—when life deals us the ‘raw hand.’ Life doesn’t accord anyone a special pain-free trip through the journey.

The option of not accepting life’s raw hand is personally untenable.

If we were to flatly refuse to accept the difficult life circumstances that come, entering aberrant denial or anger—though it might make others lives around us painful, for they’d struggle to bear us—it would be even worse for us, making our lives quickly unbearable.

Some we see choose this life; an insane life.

The simpler, more effective option is to grin and bear it—things will eventually turn for the better. Hope for that day is best whilst you sit in the lamentable position you’re in.

We all have ample opportunities to re-size or right-size in life. Life is after all, designed to conform us to it—to its systems, to its laws and thinking and ways of doing things.

Spirituality is about constantly re-sizing ourselves to our circumstances; it’s an approach to soul-healing that continues to ensure we can cope effectively at worst and at best in bliss—the latter being very difficult to maintain, but not impossible. This might describe the ‘right-sized’ individual.

In summary, life re-sizes us two ways. In our pride we’re very much exposed to life chipping off our rough edges. Secondly, even if we approach life humbly, the circumstances of life will still take us into many re-sizings.

Our best is to take the latter path and to gleefully accept it. This is impossible to do without faith. It is in our best interest to constantly train ourselves toward this modus operandi in life.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.