Reborn.
Sometimes in life, we get a chance to be reborn.
Some of us don’t need it. There are those people whose lives progress merrily along, just as they planned. They knew, early on, what they wanted to do, and their plan happened in succession. The number of these people seems to be abundant. However, there are some of us who find a diversion along the way. And. A few us find chasms.
Life is full. And when I say full, it can contain good and bad. Sometimes, those occurrences aren’t what we envisioned for ourselves.
Perhaps our idea of a marriage went terribly wrong. Maybe we tried to start a business or a career, and failed. It could be that we suffered a terrible illness and lost a part of us. Or there are times when addiction nearly kills us. And at the moment when we seem to be at the lowest point on the human scale, something in the Universe opens up slightly. A little bit of air reaches us, and we start to breathe again.
Slowly, after much labor on our part, we come out of that hole. A rebirth. We see some light for the first time, and we emerge.
Just like babies being born for the first time, we have to learn all over again. Whatever place we were in before became so “common” to us, that we had forgotten what it really, and truly, meant to be us. So.
After what feels like forever. After watching so many other people around us. We take one small step. We put one foot in front of the other. And hold on for dear life. Eventually, we learn to walk again. Then run. Maybe we even learn to fly this time around. But we have found new life.
But, just because we’ve been given a second lease on life doesn’t necessarily mean that all is going to be smooth sailing. In fact, the second time may prove to be more difficult in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
We have to do things differently this time, lest we fall into the same pit twice.
Einstein so famously said:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
And then there’s the other thing of note:
“Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me.”
So, there is always that reminder that we may fail again. The possibility exists. However, we do our best to ensure it doesn’t. And so it goes. We walk. We run. Maybe we stumble. But we get back up and walk again.
The Japanese proverb “Nana korobi, ya oki” comes to mind here. It means:
“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
And so we do.
Here’s to rebirth. Here is to standing up today and walking. In whatever direction that means for you. If it means reading that book you’ve been meaning to open? Or trying to do five modified push-ups? Or working on a watercolor painting for the very first time?
It means breathing again. For in each new moment, we have the chance to be reborn.
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May we all have to will in us to stand up, for that eighth time.
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“My sun sets to rise again.”
― Robert Browning
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“I’ve had so many rebirths, I should come with my own midwife by now.”
— Cher.
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Reborn. Reborn. Reborn.
