How The Worst Things Can Turn Out To Be The Best Things

Today marks what is known (in local brain injury terms) as my 8th Brain Day.

8 years ago today my life changed in a single moment.

I survived a spontaneous brain haemorrhage thanks to emergency intervention. It was however, the start of what would be life altering events.

What was at first the worst position to be in has since become the most transformative for me.

An illness that could (and statistically should probably) of killed me brought about a total shift in perspective & with it massive personal change.

Whilst it can seem, on the surface, to be an everything comes good story...It isn’t...well not entirely.

What happened to me is very very unusual, a perfect storm of events/illness, that has left me with life long disabilities & hidden illness.

If it wasn’t for an underlying illness I’d long since had maybe the haemorrhage wouldn’t of happened, then again, maybe it would of?

I realise none of us know what is ahead and if it is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing in the short or long term.

‘Bad’ things aren’t just what happens to us, they can be the things that don’t happen too, we just never know about them. The same goes for the ‘good’ things.

In this way I am fortunate because of what I’ve learned through my experience and the changes it brought about?

At the same time were these changes within me all along? The potential to become who I am now, was there, in hiding, waiting for the circumstances to call on them?

If this is the case then it has to be because of both circumstance and choice I’d say.

No one achieves anything if they don’t try hard or work hard in a particular direction to get there.

Also plenty of people who do their best and work hard never achieve what they were aiming at.

I think about this from time to time and wonder, if the change in me is as a result of the circumstances caused by illness, how can it be my responsibility for not achieving this change before I was ill?

I guess most of us will live normal lives, never knowing where the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ things may be hiding.

Having been in the position I am for 8 years, it is becoming clearer that a normal, healthy life is just as valuable.

Work hard, do your best, enjoy your life as it comes and go with whatever happens because the only certainty in life is that nothing is certain. Make the most of every moment because Momento Mori.