The Gift of Misfortune!

A few years back, I was excited to attend the launch of Gregg Hurwitz’s new novel, Don’t Look Back, at Book Carnival in the city of Orange. Gregg is one of my favorite authors, and I have attended his book signings every year. Over the course of the last several years, I had the chance to meet his lovely wife, and see his daughters blossom into beautiful young women.

This last book launch was different, however. Before he told us about his new novel, he shared the harrowing year he’d had when he discovered that his wife needed to have brain surgery. As I sat there listening to him, I was in total disbelief. I had just seen his wife the year before, and she looked beautiful and healthy. He told us that if the surgery hadn’t been successful, she would have lost all her short-term memory. The good news, though, was that the surgery was successful, and her brain now looks “unremarkable.” During this period, Gregg’s priorities completely shifted, he explained.

For me, while listening to Gregg’s story, I started thinking about what it would be like to hear that one of my loved ones needed to have brain surgery. And what if I were I told that they might never be the same again? That they wouldn’t remember anything in the present? Everything I think is important now would fade away into the background. All that I would be thinking about is the Now, and what adjustments would need to be made to deal with the situation at hand. At the forefront would be all possibilities of what could transpire from an unsuccessful surgery.

What if we don’t have to wait for a terrible diagnosis to have the right priorities? To focus on what’s really important? We worry about so many petty things during the day; so many inconsequential details that mean nothing in the big scope of life. Those things, no matter how small, take our attention away from what’s really meaningful.

What are we doing when we focus on the mundane? When we have stupid fights about absurd situations? What are we doing when we’re not appreciating life to its fullest? We’re not living fully—that’s what we’re doing. We have to remind ourselves that everything is temporal.

Let’s take time now; not wait until November, during a Thanksgiving dinner, to give thanks for everything we have. Let’s be grateful for the Gift of Misfortune because it gives us clarity to what’s really significant in our lives.

Let’s stop and Focus on what’s real. Let everything else fade into the background. You’ll be left with the NOW moments—the only Gift we really have.