Just Do It
When I was in elementary school they said “just study harder”. When I struggled with my weight I was told to “just eat less”. When I couldn’t get out of bed because I was so dizzy and sick to my stomach they said “just pull yourself together”. It seems unless you stand in the shoes of someone else it may be impossible to truly imagine what is or is not possible for another person in the present moment. I watch my son struggle with trying to explain to friends and family how it is for him on a daily basis with a life limiting illness. Even those people that say they understand still can’t really comprehend why he doesn’t do x-y-or-z because they think he can do l-m-n-&-o just fine and they figure there is a transitive property of chronic illness.
Just take a pill. Just rest up before you try. Just laydown and close your eyes. Just man up, pull up your big girl panties, bite the bullet, grow a pair, suck it up, be an adult, grow the fuck up, grow a spine, get your tail out from between your legs! Apparently our courage is summoned from south of the equator in some people’s mind. Or perhaps that is simply where they focus their attention. But when your compass isn’t pointing down and compassion replaces contravene you get a glimpse from the other side.
Of course there are the new age zealots who believe you can think, tap, dream or ACV your way out of a bad situation. Afterall its all karma, is it not? Sadly no. There are some things that you simply can’t overcome. Some molehills that might as well be mountains and some potholes in the road that you can’t drive around no matter how many times you ruin the alignment in your car.
I have an impossible situation at the moment that is taking my every attention and worry. It doesn’t make sense to able bodied people and I wouldn’t be facing it if I was not disabled. So it does make sense then that it seems senseless to someone who isn’t in my situation. We only know what we know and even that we don’t always hit the mortarboard on the cap.
Just Do It, isn’t an inspirational team cheer when its up against an invisible illness that is as hard to explain as it is to live with. People are tempted to say … Is it that you can’t or you won’t? Because the Mind over Matter paradigm is so strongly ingrained in the social collective brain. Are you physically sick or just mentally ill? Are you actually capable or just lazy? Somehow they think our priorities are just out of whack or if we cared about it more (if you love me enough) then we’d do it. If it was something we really really wanted.
Because after all, what is the alternative? We believe that we have no control and we are each just piss ants floating downstream on a log? That we may one day find our self with a desire that can not be fulfilled, a task we are doomed to fail, a challenge we can not fix with a bucket of ice water, is simply too frightening to entertain. It must be that YOU are somehow less capable, not smart enough, too stubborn for your own good or want to be miserable. That feels better than the taste of helplessness left in our mouth when we wave our pom-poms and shout Give Me a J-U-S-T DO-IT!
However strong I feel about my own limitations or other people’s judgement thereof, I do believe with equal conviction that anything can happen. But not because I found the bootstraps to my walk-a-mile in my shoe … but simply because the Universe is always changing. And things can fall into place or out of whack with the same ease or obstacle as the polar opposite.
And that is the uncertainty that comes with sitting and looking deeply into what is real, what is wished for, what is possible and what is simply in this moment not on the table. Its not about complaisance or giving up or in-to the vortex of a limited life. It is simply what IS, in this moment based on who I AM and that which I CAN’T.
