Determination!

Determination! 

Little known fact about B: After rising from the throes of death and out of a deep, dark coma, for the 6 months that followed, I had to learn to, breathe again, swallow again, talk again, stand again, walk again, urinate again, defecate again, bathe again, and write again. I actually taught myself how to write with my left hand, so now I can write with both. There was pain in the morning, pain in the afternoon, and pain in the evening. There was pain when I was awake and pain when I was asleep. There was pain with every breath, every step, every dream, every thought, and every tear drop. 

Here's an excerpt from my unreleased book to, inspire you, empower you, amd fuel your determination...

Enjoy! 

"Most of the faces I saw were either filled with gratitude, disbelief, or a mixture of both! My being alive after the entire ordeal with all of my wits and senses intact was awe inspiring. Some of the hospital staff seemed down right dumbfounded by the remarkable turn-of-events! What doesn't kill you really does make you stronger, and if you learn from what you go through and apply those lessons in your life, you're sure to grow wiser and more understanding from them. Over the past four years, I've played what I could remember of the events of that evening over and over again, hundreds of times in my mind, analyzing even the smallest, seemingly most insignificant details. Looking back, I've come to embrace that period of my life as an opportunity to transform adversity into fortune!

Being physically debilitated and completely immobilized made it so that all I could do was rest, think, think, and think some more. During the moments immediately following my successful bout with death, and throughout the period of my recovery, I learned to fully appreciate all of the things that are so easy to take for granted. I realized more than ever just how precious blessings like health, family, and the ability to work, help, create, and produce really are.

Reality Check

Under normal conditions, there are many things that we as people do on a day to day basis without giving them much thought; such as walking, working, using the restroom, resting, eating, bathing, running errands, holding conversations, as well as engaging in the activities associated with pursuing ambitions, goals, and objectives; however, sustaining critical life-threatening injuries, being unable to move about, and shouldering the emotional turmoil that often accompanies these, as was the case with me, made the ordinary activities extra-ordinary, and the relatively easy and simple tasks more difficult. Tragedy is the ultimate reality check and when it befalls a person, immediately, the differences between needs and wants are made more apparent. Relationships that are based on unconditional love and mutual affection, respect and appreciation versus those that are superficial, shallow, convenient, and simply based on shared interests are highlighted and their true merit and worth in life become clearer. Were you to ever find your self in a situation with circumstances similar to what mine were, you would realize just how unimportant issues that appear urgent really are. You learn anew the distinctions between noise, and sound, being understood and simply being tolerated, being loved unconditionally and being a mere consideration. Adverse circumstances will challenge you to appreciate the differences between needs and wants, living and being alive, living in the moment and living for the moment, being conscious and aware and being responsible; being hopeful and faithful versus being optimistic and idealistic, a vision versus a dream, being fulfilled versus being successful, being brave versus being proud, cost versus price, things worth pursuing versus things worth having, appreciation versus fascination, determination versus ambition, will versus desire, how strong you are when you're weak and how weak you are when you're strong: comprehending the degrees between understanding and knowing, transcending and coping, hearing and listening, possibilities and probabilities, responding and reacting, deserving and earning, regret and remorse, self-imposed limitations and societal barriers, necessary struggle and undue stress, encouraging and enabling, healing and recovering, being connected versus being attached, being resolute versus being convinced, being special versus being unique....contentment versus complacency, growth versus change, pain versus hurt, self critique versus self pity, fixations and addictions, a strategy versus a plan, recalling versus remembering, being free versus being at liberty, a right versus a privilege, a cause versus a motive, a purpose versus a reason, intuition versus instinct and a feeling versus a sensation.

When life flashed before my eyes I was forced to thoroughly take inventory of my physical, emotional, and psychological stock. While a man is at liberty to physically move about at will the issues that genuinely warrant his fullest attention, usually the issues that are most challenging, those pressing items on his much neglected running list of things he aught to do or not, often times take a back seat to the activities that are rich in immediate gratification. It's easy for him to confuse being distracted with being busy, being busy with being productive, being productive with being efficient, and being efficient with being impeccable. It's simple to float from task to task unencumbered under normal circumstances, but when a person has no choice but to remain still, there’s far less room to maneuver and avoid what the heart is bringing to mind. It is usually only when a person fully realizes what it really means to lose something that's irreplaceable, such as life, does that person begin to completely appreciate the privilege of being in possession of it and the duty and pleasure in making the best use of it. How often is the precious balance of life under-appreciated? How much of our world do we assume will be there when our attention comes back to it? Our society places the highest premium on material accumulation, but there are certain things that no amount of money can purchase. When a person loses his/her life they are gone forever from the form you know him or her as. No amount of money can bring them back to life. Bill gates may be able to purchase just about everything under the sun, but all of his billions could never buy back the life of a dearly departed soul or time. Like wise, once a persons health is irreparably damaged, there isn’t a dollar amount in the world that could restore him or her to the soundness of 'vigor, proportion and vitality.” Healing requires time and energy.

Likewise, once trust is betrayed it cannot be purchased back. The complex variations of emotions I felt were deep and wide. There were strange mixtures of betrayal, remorse, embarrassment, anger, guilt, hope, sorrow, strength, vulnerability, fear, and paranoia. My heart and mind was confronted with a melange of feeling, misunderstood, gracious, immortal, humbled, helpless, inspired, determined, encouraged, matured, pride, victimized, bewildered, amazed, grief-stricken, estranged, forlorn, displaced, mistreated, cynical: you name the emotion, I felt it.

With this confluence of intense emotional dialogue transpiring within my heart and mind, together with the inability to physically move about or engage in something that would provide some temporary relief from the torrent of warring emotions and conflicting feelings, the search for truly abiding peace was on! That it was futile to brood over the hypothetical possibilities of a bygone event, thinking what if this this and what if that, doting about what I could have or should have done differently to avoid the condition I found myself in, was increasingly obvious. It was here that I came to truly appreciate how although we may not have total control and sole determination over certain things that happens to us, what we do possess is the uncanny tenacity to decide upon and exercise how we respond to what happens within, to, and around us. No amount of pro action can undermine the invaluable ability to respond. The former is likely, but the latter is mandatory. Bed ridden, being fed through a tube, temporarily paralyzed, there wasn't much room to dodge reality. Sometimes, moving about gives the illusion of progress just as being surrounded by people offers one the semblance of being connected. Having money gives one the suggestion of choice, but the impermanent and precarious nature of all of these are viscerally brought to the fore whenever life as one has come to know, accept, and anticipate it, undergoes a radical restructuring that typically occurs when a tragedy, calamity or some sort of crisis is experienced. Yesterday was finished, though the repercussions of its events still echoes and the only thing certain about the future was that should I live to make it my present it would be new, challenging, and would require me to take the best of what I'd learned, the most valuable memories of what I’d experienced, and use them to propel me forward and onward.

Not to think or behave like a victim was the next pivotal resolution I made! Although I..."