“If you wonder what you were doing in the past, look at your body; to know what will happen to you in the future, look at your mind.” – Dalai Lama
As I do believe in reincarnation I was a little put off by this statement. Not that I’m doubting the wisdom of His Holiness the Dalai Lama or anything, but I guess it struck a cord. I don’t blame myself for my illness. Well, I don’t blame my illness on anything I’ve done in this lifetime. Or, at least, I try not to. Still, it’s hard to know what I may have done in a previous lifetime… Anyway, I know that I have readers with many different religious beliefs so I won’t belabor the reincarnation point. The past is the past, so let’s move on to the second part of the quote: what will happen to us in the future?
As I am not averse to admitting to my guilty pleasures on this blog, let me admit to another: the Twilight series. I was watching Twilight just the other night with my cousin and my sister. At least, I was watching it until I heard the quote:
“Alice’s visions are subjective, the future can always change.”
Well, you all know how I am by now. I obviously zoned out and disappeared into that place in my mind where I fixate on a quote or saying until I figure out what I think about it. I mean no disrespect by joining this Twilight quote to one by HHDL, but I think the concepts are connected. The future can always change, because we can change it by how we interact with the world … and how we interact with the world is largely determined by our own mindsets.
The problem with a chronic illness, is that it often limits how well we manage to interact with the world. Our illnesses keep us at home – often in bed – day after droll day. I never thought I could be so tired of the inside of my room, but then again I never thought I could be so tired either. The days when I would fake sick to stay in bed seem a distant memory now that I get so excited to actually NOT be so sick I must stay in bed. It’s so easy to get depressed – and therein lies an even bigger toll we pay to our illnesses. When we’re depressed we don’t want to do anything. We don’t want to interact with the world or anyone in it. We need to beat that, but it’s very, very hard. We must find ways to interact with the world because I get the most depressed when I feel alone and isolated. A feeling that can be at least partly alleviated.
In today’s technology-centered world, we are hardly as restricted as we would have been 100 years ago. After all, we can blog, we can tweet, we can email. We can send text messages and make phone calls. We must do what we can not only to interact with the world, but to keep our spirits up. We support each other and we rally each other to achieve what we want to achieve in our lives. Be it getting out of bed that day or walking to raise money for lupus research. I find, however, that it is actually an upward spiral. Your support helps me to get myself to school and to study, so I do better in my classes, and that makes me feel better about myself … which leads to more interactions with all of you wonderful people. And so on. Even more importantly, you all are there to boost me when I slide back down that spiral again, too keep me from sliding all the way down to where that spiral lands me: smack dab in the middle of my bed, under my covers, refusing to get up. This connection with the community has been my lifeline lately. It’s what keeps me from crawling up in the fetal position under my covers and never coming out. I don’t know how I got by day-to-day before I joined the online community, I cant imagine getting by without all of you wonderful people!
So this week… I ask you, my beloved readers, what do you do to keep your spirits up?