A Quick Note on Focus and Reality

As I posted yesterday, I just came home from the hospital after an unplanned 11-day "vacation" to one near where we live in Thailand. Something occurred to me I thought might be of some value to you. 

When the accident occurred, I was driving approximately 35 kph, or about 22 mph. I was driving safely and sensibly, with my lovely wife on the back. The weather was good, the road conditions were... well, let's say there were not any strange conditions. We were approaching a curve turning left in the road and a man came driving in my lane on his motorcycle. I hit my breaks and swerved to miss him so as to avoid a head-on collision and... we fell. The other dude never even stopped. 

This accident changed the last 11 days of my life. It will change the next 8-10 months of my life as I learn how to walk, sit, stand-up and move in ways that don't put my hip or pelvis at unnecessary risk for reinjury. My first four days of this experience were pretty hellish, over the next months I'll spend many hours with a physical therapist, endure the joy of scar massage for hours, I'm lighter in the bank account, I'll spend time and money traveling for rehabilitative care, and I did nothing wrong. My wife was hurt and I did nothing wrong.

Sucks, right? I mean it really does suck. I imagine I will spend some more time with these realizations in the future. 

If I let myself cling to that, how far will I get? I've got as much justification as anyone might for blaming or just being pissed off, but focusing on that won't do a damned thing to help me. I'm grateful I never had these thoughts while I was in the hospital. I'm more grateful still for the thoughts that developed as I spent time in the hospital. 

My thoughts centered on gratitude that things weren't much, much worse. They certainly could have been much worse, but they weren't. I felt grateful that somehow, despite the intensity of my pain, I was able to communicate effectively with my medical care team to improve my care; that I made friends out of many of those professionals instead of being seen as some whiny foreigner who thought the world revolved around him. I'm grateful that my surgeon had the ability and humility to listen to me and make immediate and effective changes to my care plan. 

I wish this whole thing had never happened, but if it had not happened, I wouldn't have met some pretty awesome people, or had my most authentic Thai experience ever in my whole seven years+ here.

I've written about the power of perception, our ability to reframe, and the tremendous impacts we can experience if we'll try these things. I'm happy to know that I walk my talk. It would have been easy, understandable and even justifiable for me to be a whiny asshole about all of this, but I wasn't. I really think that made a tremendous difference in my experience, which is yet another thing to feel very grateful for. 

If I can reframe and shift perspective under objectively terrible circumstances, anyone can do it in their day-to-day. For me, it made all the difference. If its not a part of your mental calculus when you're going through stuff, I hope you'll consider checking your opportunities for reframing and/or changing perspective. It might make all the difference for you, too. 

Thank you for reading. I hope you got value equal to the time you invested reading my post.