NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION 2011: REMOVING THE ROCKS IN THE ROAD

The Rocky Road – Author Unknown

“In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand.”

“Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.”

I’ll go one further. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to mature and become stronger. As I look back over the past year and the many obstacles I and other family members and close friends have faced, I am certain of one thing. I feel stronger, wiser and more powerful having traveled my own personal rocky road during 2010. Birth, marriage, divorce, job loss, legal woes, financial concerns, sleepless nights, serious illness, and death were all part of this year's path. No doubt every reader can relate. Yet, despite worry and depression over events beyond my control, here I sit feeling optimistic about the future. I believe that like the song "Going on a Bear Hunt", I'm not going to be afraid - I'll somehow surmount all road blocks. If I can't move the rocks I'll simply figure out how to go around them, and encourage others to do the same.

Here are ten strategies for traveling a rocky road:

1. Train yourself to develop a positive attitude. This CAN be done, but it takes work.

2. Decide to have empathy for others. Put yourself in their place and think how you would feel, and what would make you feel better.

3. Do good deeds without expectation of payback.

4. Develop your listening skills, so that you listen more than you talk.

5. Offer to help someone who is in difficult straits. Running errands, taking a friend or neighbor to the doctor or shopping, offering emergency care for a child, or any other task that would lower someone's stress level, can make a huge positive difference when one is feeling low.

6. If you know someone with children is having marital problems, offer to help out with babysitting so that the people involved can have some alone time.

7. If you see that someone is "stuck" and unable to move ahead in their life, try to find out what the sticking point is, and see if your fresh ideas might be helpful. Example: A young person I know has recently moved with her family far away from friends and her comfort zone. She wants to go to technical school, but doesn't know how to find out what steps she needs to take. I have experience in this area and have received permission from her to explore what she should do first. Thinking about her takes my mind off my own troubles.

8. Go to a nursing home once a month to visit residents there. My mother, along with her friend, baked a birthday cake every month to share with those having birthdays in that month. Many people in nursing homes are forgotten or ignored by their family members and friends, and this small gesture might be the only outside, positive, caring contact some of them have. Visualize how you would feel in this situation; in fact, it could happen to any of us some day!

9. If you have time, explore the idea of becoming a "big brother" or "big sister" for a child in need. Go to www.bbbsa.org/ to learn more. Thinking about others helps remove rocks from the paths of those others as well as one's own.

10. Smile often and have a pleasant, welcoming expression on your face. Say hello. Try it everywhere from the supermarket to people you pass on the street. You will be amazed at how you feel and others respond.

Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Listen to the Wind encountered many 'rocks on the road" in Pakistan, where he started schools so that children could learn and have a future. Some of the "rocks" or problems included no place to conduct school, no school supplies, and no bridges to transport materials for making and conducting those schools. In these books we learn how stones along the way were used in the building of bridges and classrooms. One man made a huge difference by removing the rocks on the road figuratively and literally.

Thinking about rocks in our paths makes me think about rocks on the beach. Some are jagged and rough, while others are smoothed and flattened by the water's constant motion, creating good skippers. It seems to me that, in a way, life's rough waters bounce us about and change the way we look and feel. In other words, we're shaped by our problems and how we solve them.

Here's to 2011 and whatever rocks the year may have in store for us. Let's resolve to move the rocks like the man in the fable above and like Greg Mortenson in Pakistan. We may be pleasantly surprised at what's underneath.