Embracing the Rollercoaster: Navigating the Ups and Downs
It's comforting to delude ourselves that our lives and careers should follow a steady upward trajectory, like a climbing line on a graph. But in reality, they resemble the unpredictable zigzag of the stock market, with its ups and downs. This fluctuation is not a sign of failure, but a natural part of the journey. Just like the stock market, we show growth when we stay in the game long enough. The key is to hang in there, especially during the challenging times when the downs seem to outweigh the ups.
Regardless of who we are, our lives and careers are a series of peaks and valleys. The crucial thing to remember is that, with time, we always end up higher than where we started, if we continue to invest in the most important of all assets: ourselves.
When things aren’t going well, it is easy to give up. As has been said many times, though, if it were easy, everyone would do it. They aren’t. They stop. The difference is that you don’t. You persist. You know that downtimes and frustrating times are part of the game, just as taking a long walk, for example, on the Appalachian Trail in my home state. You climb mountains; you go into valleys; you have easy paths and rocky ones that seek to twist your ankles and make you fall. You keep going, though, knowing what you know is at the end…if you keep going through the sun and the rain.
There's a part of you that must always keep the vision. When you're down, you’ll need to lift yourself. Don’t rely on anyone else to do it. As writers, some may discourage us, urging us to give up our dreams. But if we listen to them, we'll be absent from our writing chairs; our goals and dreams will wither and die. We'll never be what we could have been. You don’t want that. There will be times when you need a helping hand. Train yourself to recognize that hand when you reach for it. It's your own. You see the vision, only you. You must lead yourself to your own personal Promised Land.
You cannot stop the ups and downs. That’s a part of life. Things won’t always go your way. People will not accept you. In our profession, maybe in most professions, we feel rejections, setbacks, and disappointments possibly daily. Instead of giving up, grab onto your hand and pull yourself up. Something unique will happen in this interaction. Your brain will begin to rewire itself. It will start to expect setbacks and disappointments and deal with them constructively and in continuing ways. Setbacks don’t mean you stop; they tell you to find a way around. Your brain will rewire itself to navigate that. Your thinking will become a habit. Your emotions will adjust. Reach for your hand.
Ultimately, we are either trained by others, or we train ourselves. The latter is much better. Become your teacher. Even at the transitory bottom, look up. The sun is shining. The path is clear before you. It would be best if you simply kept walking. With a new view of the world and an understanding that setbacks happen to everyone, you’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel. Walk toward it no matter what your feet meet along the way. You’ll come out, I promise, in the sunlight. Everything you dream about will come true. In the end, though, it is up to you.
Make that choice.
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