“At one point I took on a new job, and I just didn’t have time to do anything but work.” (Sharon Olds)
Yes, that’s what happened to me, too. But I’ve been at my NEW JOB for 6 weeks now, I’ve settled in and…I’m back.
Change! In the form of…a new job! At Brigham Young University!
It’s really true: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” (Samuel Goldwyn)
Go…cougars!
“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” (Steve Jobs)
While I’ve always found change a challenge, I have come to an epiphany (finally! after fighting most change that has left me with the desire to kick, scream and wish it all away):
Life is SO interesting because of the very thing that makes it interesting—the unexpected life.
So whether you’re in a “lull” and enjoying days of relative peace and comfort, or if you’re in the midst of a full blown storm of adversity, I’ve learned great growth comes from change. So I’m learning to embrace it a bit more in my own life and find myself the better for it.
Don’t be afraid of it.
Remember, great things come from it. (Just keep telling yourself that as you live and face the challenges of an unexpected life.)
And see what happens in your life as you do.
I’m about to.
Big change is coming to the former Andrea Merriman.
Stay tuned.
“The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.” (Robert Doisneau)
I’m barely two weeks into the “new” year and have already been blessed with more unexpected experiences than I thought I’d have the privilege to enjoy all year! None have reached the 2009 benchmark (not anything even close, thankfully!) but I’ve had more head shaking moments–where all I can do is laugh at my unexpected life–than I care to admit, and it has only been 14 days!
Which reminds me…note to self: look for the humor in every unexpected marvel of daily life it’s your good fortune to experience. After all, “A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.” (William Arthur Ward)
Happy 2013!
Make it marvelous.
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” (Lou Holtz)
There you have it, Andrea Merriman’s SIX STEPS TO SURVIVING ANYTHING.
And when all else fails, I guess, you can look to the inspiring examples of others, follow in their footsteps and carry on anyway when life and its challenges seem overwhelming. That’s what I do.
Let me introduce you to some of my heroes. Sadly, I don’t even know her name, but her life and what she chose to do with it, inspires me to carry on no matter what.
She and her husband had lived an idyllic life in East Prussia prior to WWII. Then came the war. Her husband was killed and she was left alone to care for their four children when occupying forces determined Germans in East Prussia had to go to Western Germany. She was forced to make a journey of over 1,000 miles on foot—with four little children—allowed to take only what they could load into their small, wooden-wheeled wagon.
They left in late summer with no food or money, forced to gather whatever they could find to sustain them from fields and forests along the way. They faced constant dangers from panic-stricken refugees and plundering troops. Days turned into weeks and months, the temperatures dropped below freezing, and they continued to stumble over the frozen ground, her smallest child, a baby, in her arms and her three other children struggling behind her; the oldest, seven years old, pulling their tiny wagon.
Their shoes had disintegrated so they wore ragged and torn burlap to cover their feet. Their only clothing and protection against the cold were their thin, tattered jackets. The snows came and the days and nights became a nightmare. She constantly forced from her mind overwhelming fear that they would perish before reaching their destination. And then one morning, it happened: she awakened to find her three-year-old daughter cold and still.
Overwhelmed with grief, she used the only implement she had, A SPOON, to dig a grave in the frozen ground for her precious child. And they traveled on. They had to.
Death was her companion again, over and over on the journey. Her seven-year-old son died. Again, her only shovel was a spoon, and again she dug hour after hour to lay his mortal remains gently into the earth. Then her five-year-old son died, and again, she used her spoon as a shovel.
She had only her baby daughter left, and as she reached the end of her journey the baby died in her arms. The spoon was gone now, so hour after hour she dug a grave in the frozen earth with her bare fingers. She had lost her husband and all her children; she had given up her earthly goods, her home and even her homeland; and in the moment of overwhelming sorrow, she felt her heart would break.
And then, something within her said, “Get down on your knees and pray.” She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life: “Dear Heavenly Father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left.”
Then she recognized that her faith was the one thing she had left, and that it was a blessing to her, which led to expressions of gratitude and resulted in a new determination to live.
Recognizing our blessings and counting them, even if we can only come up with one blessing we have (that we’re still breathing, or that we have faith) can give us the will and determination to press forward and to carry on, no matter our adversities.
Step 6: Look for miracles and tender mercies in your life, they will be there, and be grateful for them.
“David Bednar said, “…Tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving kindnesses, consolation, [and] support…which we receive.”
I received many tender mercies at a time when I seemed to have not much else.
For example, and as I’ve mentioned before, when people asked if I needed anything, I told them we were fine. And we were “fine.” We lived as scant an existence as possible and although we had food to eat, it was very basic food—NO extras of “fun” food. And then one day, a friend showed up with an entire carload of “fun” food from Costco: Mickey Mouse-shaped chicken nuggets, Oreos, chips, doughnuts, fruit snacks, crackers, juice, fresh fruit, all the fun “extras” when you’re eating and living as inexpensively as possible. My children were overjoyed! It was like Christmas to them (and they still talk about that delivery to this day.)
But the tender mercies didn’t end with Colorado.
I moved to Utah and began a new life feeling very much a failure. I didn’t think things could get any worse until they did—when I made the fateful error of heading to the grocery store on a Saturday night. I didn’t have anything else to do, I didn’t know anyone, I had to feed my kids, there was a big sale at a neighborhood grocery store, so off I went. I was convinced I was the only “loser” who grocery shopped on a Saturday night!
Every shopping cart that night appeared to be pushed by a happy, in love, couple with plenty of money to pay for their purchases. I had none of that anymore and had never felt so alone or worthless. When my shopping was done and just when I thought I couldn’t feel any lower, a car drove by me in the parking lot and the driver ridiculed my purchases through his open window. Those thoughtless words uttered by one man devastated me!
In the dark, tears welling in my eyes and feeling SO ALONE and appalled that apparently I couldn’t even purchase food for my children without being persecuted and wondering how I was going to endure the next 40-50 years of my new life, I unlocked by mar, turned to unload my cart, and was stunned to see a man standing there in the darkness. He had come from out of nowhere and without a word, grabbed the purchases from my cart and unloaded them into the back of my car.
When he was done, he paused for a moment, looked into my eyes, and smiled at me—a smile of compassion, and although it was dark, I noticed that his eyes were light blue, his skin was tan, his teeth were white and his hair was dark but slightly graying. And then without a word, he got into an older, dark-colored Suburban I suddenly noticed was parked next to me, and drove away.
I got in my car, completely changed, thanks to that anonymous man, whoever he was, and his kind service to me. For a brief moment I hadn’t been alone, a man had been kind to me (which I really needed at that stage of my life!) and for a moment I felt like everything was going to be ok.
I don’t believe anyone makes it through this life without problems and challenges and sometimes, tragedies and misfortunes. However, if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will see the miracles and tender mercies that are ours and will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” (Henry David Thoreau)
“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through…” (John Jakes)
So later, when federal agents told me they were coming to inventory my possessions for seizure, unexpectedly came the thought into my mind, “You should hide some of your jewelry, no one will every know, and then you’ll have something to sell to help feed your children and keep them alive.” I was shocked! I’d been honest my entire life—my parents had taught me not to eat even a grape from the bunch at the grocery store without paying for it first; at great inconvenience I’d driven back to stores that had given me a few incorrect cents of change, and now I’d had the thought to, basically, steal something? (Granted, they HAD been MY things, not to mention the stakes were very high for me personally, but I never anticipated ever having such a thought.)
However, within moments I decided, “I am not going to change who I am just because someone else was never who they professed to be!” So I didn’t hide anything, I even reminded the investigators of my jewelry when they came to my home.
The bad news? Yes, my jewelry was seized and I lost an asset I could have sold and used to begin a new life with. The good news? I remained true to myself and who I’d always been. And it’s always worth it to remain true to yourself, on every level and in every way. Always. No matter what happens.
And when you do that, you’ll survive; you’ll be ok. You may not have all the jewelry you wish you had, but you’ll be ok! You’ll have a different kind of “richness” in your life that no one can seize from you.
“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” (Oscar Wilde)
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false and to incur my own abhorrence.” (Frederick Douglass)
Step 5: Hold your head up and be true to who you are no matter what.
Boy, for me in the wake of the destruction of 2009, this proved to be a hard one. It was NOT fun!
I remember the first Sunday after our life ended, my children looked at me and said, “We don’t have to go to church today, do we?” (None of us wanted to face our congregation for the first time after such a disaster.) And I had to be the one to say, “Yes, we are going.” Honestly, it wasn’t fun. In truth, it was awful. Not just the uncomfortable and awkward, but having my oldest sit on the pew and cry during the meeting while my middle son sat and drew on a piece of paper, “There’s a hole where my heart used to be” was terrible. I was grief stricken and disgraced, but we went to church because it was who we were. In life, you have to do that.
What I didn’t expect was an even greater challenge. A moment of temptation to be someone I was not and never had been.
Stay tuned.
Step 4: Refrain from speaking useless words and never give in to what they spawn—anger, your’s or anyone else’s!
Thomas S. Monson once said the two most useless words in the English language are “if only.” He’s right, I’m sure, but I would also add two more: “why me?”
Too many people experience adversity—illness, financial reverse, betrayal, a divorce, an unexpected death, even a natural disaster—from which they never recover, usually the result of focusing on “why me” and “if only,” which leads to anger and a downward spiral that goes on to ruin not only their lives, but the lives of others. I was determined NOT to let that same thing happen to me when my world fell apart!
I’d had a friend whose husband betrayed her and asked for a divorce, and instead of carrying on she indulged in the four most useless words, which fed her anger (which she also indulged) to the point that she never recovered. She has been miserable for 11 years now and counting, still angry over what her former husband did, and she has completely ruined not just her life but the lives of her children. Meanwhile, her husband had remarried, had more children, is very happy and has a good relationship with his older children as well.
On another occasion, I met a 50-year-old woman without a job, a place to live, a winter coat or even shoes (other than sandals) in the snowy climate of Colorado. As I drove her to purchase a coat and some winter shoes, I couldn’t help but ask how she had arrived at such desperate circumstances. She said her dad had died unexpectedly when she was a teenager and that the experience had been very difficult for her because she had really loved her dad! She continued, “Why me? If only that hadn’t happened…” In that moment I realized I had been blessed with the same life experience she had, at close to the same age. I believe the difference was in what we had each allowed ourselves to indulge in.
It is never productive and actually, can be very destructive in my experience, if you let yourself indulge in, and wallow in, feelings of anger, resentment and hatred. Hatred, anger and resentment are like acid—they only destroy the vessel in which they are stored. And it IS possible to do that when instead of indulging in those feelings, you choose to allow yourself to heal.
“Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” (Thomas More)
“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.” (Bill Cosby)
Step three to surviving anything and living a thankful life: look for the humor in your misery—it will be there.
As Marjorie Hinckley said, “In life, you can choose to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh!”
Me too.
For example, the very night Shawn Merriman destroyed not just my world but our children’s world and we found out everything we’d thought was ours was gone and we’d be moving who-knows-where to rebuild a new life from scratch as the Five Musketeers (me, the mother, and my four children), my oldest son went downstairs and found a live mouse on the floor of his bathroom. (We lived on 3 acres, surrounded by fields; pests from the outside trying to get inside our home were an on and off again battle.)
He came upstairs to report the discovery and how he’d handled it—he’d scooped it up, dropped it in the toilet, and flushed! I brushed aside worries of what something like that does to the plumbing of a home—who knew how much longer we’d be inhabiting our home, anyway—and we looked at each other, laughed and said, “That’s one thing we won’t miss about this house and our life—MICE!” And chose to laugh at the “bright side” of our loss.
I also laughed several weeks later when my daughter gave her soon-to-be-single mother some advice about love and marriage. She told me I needed to get married to a good man so I “wouldn’t be alone forever.” Honestly, at that stage of the nightmare game we’d been forced to participate in, love was the least of my worries. I told her I wouldn’t marry again because I was an ‘old bag.’ She helpfully said, “Mom! Botox!” No disagreement with my assessment, just a helpful suggestion. I’ll never forget that one. In fact, I’m STILL laughing about it.
Turns out, we survived. And Bill Cosby was right: “Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.” (Bill Cosby)
Keep laughing.
“We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.” (Winston Churchill)
The second step to surviving anything and living a thankful life is: find just ONE THING to be thankful for each day.
Years ago, James E. Faust told of being raised in very poor times that required the use of homemade soap—rough and terrible smelling. He said from that, every day that he had the good fortune to use soft, sweet smelling soap, he never got over being thankful for it.
Regardless of our circumstances, each of us has much to be grateful for, sometimes we just have to stop and realize that. I believe no matter HOW BAD things get, you can always find SOMETHING you’re blessed with or grateful for!
I remember at one of my lowest times, the drama of 2009 that was forced upon me when the man I was married to revealed he’d been running a Ponzi scheme and was heading to federal prison and everything that went along with those terrible crimes, there were moments (ok, probably several weeks or a few months, if we’re being honest!) where I wasn’t sure I had much, besides my children, to be grateful for.
I had to dig deep for gratitude.
I remember one day thinking, “I have never felt such despair. What can I find to be thankful for?” and honestly, the only thing I could find to be thankful for was that I was alive—still breathing, anyway—because if I weren’t, that would mean my children would be orphans. So I chose to be thankful for that—that I was still breathing.
Some days it may be the only thing you’re grateful for is the fact you’re still breathing, and that’s ok. Some days are just that terrible.
Just remember to be thankful for SOMETHING.