Build a Windmill

“When the wind rises, some people build walls,

others build windmills.”
– Chinese Proverb

I think that life is about choices.  You choose your thoughts, you choose your path, you choose what you do with your experiences.  I don’t believe you can control everything, but I believe that you can decide how you live with those experiences.  Does that make sense to you?  I mean, to me, happiness is a choice.  I can wake up grumpy or happy.  I can decide to smile or to frown no matter what the situation.  There are awful experiences that we have endured and yet, there are those of us who find goodness is the wake of tragedy and there are those who simply cannot.  It’s a choice.

Which one are you?

Are you building walls against the winds?

Or are you using the winds’ strength to your advantage by building windmills to strengthen yourself?

I confess, I’ve done both.  I’ve isolated myself and built walls against the winds, finding the fear of recurrence overwhelming in my life.  I’ve thrown my own extended pity party, wallowing in the grief of what was lost in my life, the countless memories which are simply erased from my brain and the thousands of memories which because my health wasn’t good, were never made.  I’ve cried for the breasts which were taken, the multiple surgeries (more than 10 and counting) which I’ve endured and the reminders which line my body in raised purple tracks which never seem to fade.  The disfigurement of a body which I still inhabit, although I don’t always trust anymore.  A brain which had such ability to multitask, but now finds it difficult to focus.  Being a MOM who relished feeling SUPER, now relegated to feeling less than more often than not.  Being judged by others who don’t understand the intensity of being a cancer survivor because I strive to overcome my disease.

And yet, those winds of breast cancer’s disease, fuel my life’s windmill.  Instead of fighting them, I now allow them to strengthen me.  Sure there are moments when I wall myself in, but more often than not, you find me harnessing the strength of the wind to inspire others to find their own blessings in their lives.  It goes back to a simple choice.  You control that choice.  Your life reflects what you choose.  You can change and choose differently whenever you wish.  Because…it’s your choice.

Build windmills, not walls.

Shine On!

xo