When life takes you by surprise
When life takes you by surprise your response and those around you are critical. There are good surprises and there are also nasty ones. Changes can either creep up on you or pounce on you.
I once saw a piece on what it would have been to have been born in 1900 or a few years after. That generation sure went through a lot of life’s surprises. By your teens you were involved in World War One. You just turned adult, possibly starting a family when World War Two descended on you. If you were American and had been a surviving conscript of the second war you very likely ended up in the Korean War. You may then have seen your teenage grandson and perhaps your son depart for the Vietnam war. Life certainly took many of that generation by surprise.
Rapid changes are not easy for us to bear. However, it always pays to keep things in perspective. When you are not able to cope with certain changes, your mental health is affected. Changes often affect security. How secure your feel affects how you deal with change.
Recent events with the pandemic we are facing has been the most defining one for a generation. The response has been one of a global emergency.
Many have been conditioned to take vaccination as a way of returning to normalcy only for this to be dashed. There are now talk of further vaccination of the vaccinated required to provide adequate protection.
Some countries do not recognise the effectiveness of vaccines not made in their area of control or without input from them.
In the UK, travel destinations rapidly changed status. Places you left to visit anticipating it was a safe location from quarantine measures often changed within hours.
Change is one of the most challenging things to deal with in life. There are many that may never recover from the events of the past couple of years when life took many by surprise.
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