Boxing champ Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone has a plan until they get hit." How true. Mike Tyson's a bit of an oddity, getting hit in the head a lot will do that to a person, and I don't defend him on a personal level, but when it comes to this, he's spot on.
This statement is especially apparent when you're the one who's just been hit and you sit there in a daze, gasping, while all these faces are circling overhead saying, "you know what you should have done," and "I'll tell you what I would have done," and the worst and most ignorant statement of all, "I would never have let this happen to me." We all love to think that if we were in a bad spot we'd know exactly how to react, but the simple fact is that until you're in that moment, the moment after the hit, you really don't know what you'll do.
When that moment comes, and it surely does come to all of us at some time and in some way, you might surprise yourself by reacting the right way, by having a plan and sticking to it, but more often than not, bad things blindside us and we're so busy reeling, we don't do what we always thought we would.
Quite frankly, the idea that we can in some way protect ourselves from all the painful things in life is a fantasy. While it's true that some bad things happen because we fail to plan, more often than not, the worst tragedies and calamities are random, set in motion by forces beyond our control and well outside our knowledge and consent. That's just life. Sometimes you're riding high, sometimes you're picking yourself up out of the dirt, and sometimes you don't get up at all. When it happens, whatever it is that we fear and dread and hope we'd be smart enough to avoid, when we get hit, sometimes we find we're not nearly as tough as we thought we were. Sometimes we find we are stronger than we could ever have imagined. And you won't really know until you've been hit.
As someone who's been on both sides of that fence, let me say this: If you've never been through it, please keep your stupid mouth shut about what you would have done, especially if no one asked. Be humble, pray you don't actually have to find out what you would do in that situation, and support the person who has been through it. And if you have been through it, take a minute, breathe, and then try to recover. You're going to want to ask why, but ultimately, there may not be an answer beyond, "because." Just get up. Start moving forward and then keep going, keep working to heal, keep trying. Life may not ever be the same again, but it will get better with time and hard work.
You thought you had a plan, and then you got hit. Life was one way and now it's another. Paradigm shifts often occur at the knuckle end of a sucker punch. Now is the time when you will really find out what you're made of. Now is the time when really learn what you can do, what you have to do. And you will.
