‘Does my face look older to you?’ I stare with my brow furrowed and examine the evidence of time gone past, the lines that are deepening, the imperfections and shadows. Dave shrugs and reassures me he hasn’t noticed, no doubt well aware that there are limited ways one can respond to that query without landing themselves in a spot of relational bother.
This week Dave and I watched the heartbreaking story of Jeff Bauman in Stronger. Based on his memoir of the same name, the movie follows the journey of Bauman after he loses both legs in the Boston Marathon bombing. What struck me, apart from the incredible horror of the event and the achingly difficult time he had in adjusting to his new circumstances, was how someone could go through all that and return to being effectively the same person not that long afterwards. At first glance, Bauman is fairly unimpressive – he comes across as a charmer who slides through life expecting others to clean up his messes. It isn’t until much later in his journey that he actually owns up to his way of dealing with people and takes responsibility for his rehabilitation that he becomes someone worthy of symbolising hope.
The film reminded me of Dan Gilbert’s TED talks ‘The Surprising Science of Happiness‘. He opens by asking the audience to contemplate two different futures and decide which one would make them happier. One of them is winning the lottery….the other is becoming paraplegic. After giving them a moment to choose he reveals the uncanny truth: ‘a year after losing the use of their legs, and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives.’
This reality sounds ludicrous, but it drives home the point that what happens to you matters far less than what story you tell about it. It also goes to show that the big changes we think are going to impact us so much, have very little discernible power.
So what does change everything?
Perhaps the answer can be found in this quote:
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?
– C.S. Lewis
If, as Lewis suggest, nothing really changes, then what is it that makes it all different? The gradual process of ageing? The decisions of those around us? The physical realities of our own environment?
Last night I stumbled across the story of Tara Mackey. Coming from an unimaginably tough situation where her mother was addicted to cocaine she grew up in fraught conditions and ended up taking 14 different medications just to survive. After a failed suicide attempt she had a startling realisation about herself and her own value and decided to make some changes. Starting with going off the medications, she learned the hard way about how the little decisions can make a world of difference and change your entire trajectory. Tara spoke with Jim Kwik about her acronym for making long-lasting change:
- Willingness: to accept what is not working and be willing to change
- Intuition: to know what the next step is, take it and see where it leads you
- Love: have the self-love to do that necessary step day in and day out
- Discipline: have the discipline to take the step every day to build a new habit
Life is determined in the little moments. The decision to go on that walk, the choice to only have one glass, the prioritisation of time spent with family – we are faced with thousands of choices every day and our steps take us forward accordingly.
The realisation is equally daunting and reassuring. We have more control than we realise over our own happiness. And yet sometimes, the little decisions can be the most difficult. They happen almost without us being aware of what we are doing, our habits making us and forming us into a creature of our own (often unintentional) design.
I have decided to apply this formula to my own harmful habit of drinking alcohol to ‘get through’ crazy hour. Let me know if you want to join in – either in creating a helpful habit or erasing a harmful one! I would love the company and the comforting knowledge that we are all in this together 🙂
