Mind the gap

Everybody of us periodically face tough situations, not so favorable people, failures, health problems etc. Probably the first question we ask is "Why me?". At least I do so. And its very obvious I feel. Rough patches of life are testing times, one is drained mentally, physically and also financially. I feel the extent to which one is drained, stressed by tough times depends on the two questions. The first is of course, "Why me?". The next is "What Next?". The gap between these two questions decides the kind of stress, the kind of pressure, the kind of bothering one is supposed to go through. Not convincing right? Keep reading.



The thing is with the question "Why me", the brain most of the times goes in an infinite loop. You have not yet accepted that the situation at hand is indeed a problem. If a person born in a poor family asks this question to himself, do you think he will get an answer? No. A person made handicap in a terrorist attack or a natural calamity will never get an answer to this question. Of course, if you have failed in an examination or lost somebody in shares, there is an answer for sure like incomplete preparation or wrong investments respectively.

Once you jump to the next question " What next?", you are forcing the brain to get out of the loop and start working on a solution. You are saying "OK, not that this has happened, What next".
In simple words, you have accepted that there is a problem at hand which needs to be addressed.

So the gap between the two questions is time you took to accept the situation and started working on it. As the gap widens, probably the severity of the problem increases and so it becomes that much more difficult to handle it.
I feel my thoughts are very much in sync with the old saying
"A Stitch in time saves nine"