Josiah Mackenzie

How do you move on after overwhelming loss? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot over the past couple days.

Last week, I learned something that will dramatically change the plans I had for the next few years. For the past 6 months, I’ve been preparing mentally, educationally, and financially for a new endeavor I planned to take. All my dreams would come true once this happened.

Everything was ready, or so I thought, with only one small aspect outside my control. As fate would have it, that one aspect ended up preventing all chances of my plan taking place.

So what do I do now?

1. I tried to put it into perspective. I’m young, I’m healthy, and have unlimited opportunities ahead. To every one of you reading this: we’re the luckiest people on the planet.

2. I learned some lessons. These included:

• I don’t have total control over my life. Taking responsibility for one’s life is a hallmark of high achievers, but the reality is we cannot control every possible outcome.
• Invest in skills with many applications. Thankfully, I did this. However, in hindsight I could see how it could have turned out even worse if I did not.
• Enjoy the process. There is a scene in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior where Dan, the gymnast, is telling Socrates how all his problems will be solved once he wins the gold medal. Socrates has him consider the possibility of not achieving that - which makes Dan angry. Later, Dan gets into an accident that dashes his dreams, but launches him on a path to discovering what provides true meaning. There is so much I can relate to in that movie; it seems every time I’ve accomplished something big, I wish I had enjoyed the process more. I need to stop the “once X happens, then I’ll be happy” mentality. There is so much I can be thankful for right now.

3. I’m looking into other options. I refuse to give up. If my first plan failed, I’ll come up with two more. If those don’t work out, I’ll come up with more. With each failure, I’m closer than every to accomplishing what I want.

I’ll never give up on my dreams, but I’ll also remember to enjoy the process.