Raise your hand if you are facing a hardship.  Now raise your hand if you have overcome one before.  Now raise your hand if you have the answer about staying on the upside all time.  

Well, well, well, news flash!  Life is all about ups and downs.  Right?  

Okay sorry for that rash opening, but it is truth.  It’s life, it’s normal.  We are not alone going through a bunch of unexpected and uncontrollable twists and curves.  Each individuals journey is jammed pack with highs and lows and those peaks and valleys are a part of our life to teach us how to live.  They are in fact good for us! 

The sooner one accepts this the sooner they can start responding to it.  That’s the key, how we choose to respond.  

It’s a difficult path to walk… our own life path.  It’s not like anyone else’s.  It’s constantly new territory that we’re exploring and discovering.  It’s constant questioning, reflecting, adjusting, and planning.   It’s easy to look at other’s and wish we had it as easy, or on the flip side, be thankful it’s not as rough.  Either way,  at some point we will be glad when things are good or we will also at some point, be trying to figure out how things got so bad.  We can of course be looking to our pupils and those who’ve gone before us to glean wisdom from their experiences, but inevitably we all must face our own path.  We must at some point comprehend and attain a vision for how to handle the ups and downs were dealt.  

The good news is there is always something we can do about the place we find ourselves.  Here are a few steps to consider through the ups and downs.  

• Recognize – Take a sec to soak it up and gain some perspective.  Recognize what has happened whether it’s a high or low and how you found yourself there.  Did you make a good choice or a poor one?  Was it a series of choices?

• Remind – Remember what you believe in.  What values helped you or hurt you?  Decide good from bad and either repeat or retreat.

• Refocus – Whether you are on a peak or in a valley time isn’t going to stop yet.  You have to continue on.  Quiting isn’t an option.  Think about the next best thing you can start doing right away and get busy.  No one ever climbed a mountain or sustained the victory by being stagnant.  The only option is to move forward.  

I completely understand that these steps seem quite simple.  However, if you’ve lived long enough, you understand they are much easier said than done.  We can never get too good at this.  The more we live and learn about, the more challenges we face.  Life is about learning.  That is the real lesson to accept.  The ups and downs are simply things we haven’t learned about verses things we have.  

What are you experiencing?  A high, a low, a lull even?  What are you going to do about it?  

I hope you choose to learn, grow stronger, become better and  “Live For The Most”

xx kc